- Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for coming in, spending your time with us this afternoon, this webinar regarding Start Strong 2023 Guidelines. I'll just wait for a little bit while people trickle in. I can see the numbers rising steadily. Fantastic. All right, looks like the numbers are starting to plateau out, so we will look to get started. People continue to trickle in as we go along but hopefully they won't miss too, too much at the beginning. All right, well, thank you all for joining us today. Again, thank you very much. We know it's a late session, 4:30, 5:30 and your time is very valuable but hopefully we can provide an informative session for everybody today. My name is Jeff Wong. I'm a program coordinator with the Funded Programs Team at the Department of Education. Joining me, are a bunch of my colleagues amongst the panelists and we'll introduce them as we proceed through the webinar. If we could move to the first slide, please. Oh, sorry, we're just waiting for a few more people.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our hearts to care for aboriginal land. We promise.

- Sorry, everybody, just bear with us for one moment, we're just waiting for a few key participants to join. All right, thank you everybody for joining us today. Apologies for the delay, we were just sorting a few technical issues but while we're going through that, I'll just go through a few housekeeping before we start. For participants, just a reminder that your microphone, video and chat functions will be disabled during the webinar. However, the Q and A function will be available at the bottom of your screen. If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please feel free to pop in your question there and a member from our team will try to answer them or we hopefully will get through them at a later time. We will prioritise the questions that are most voted most highly and we'll try to answer them throughout the webinar. We'll also be using a Menti during this session. If, for those of you who are familiar, this means it would be good if you could have your phone or another web browser ready to scan or enter the code on the screen when it comes up so you can participate in the interactive components of the session. And just a reminder that this webinar is being recorded and we will hopefully be able to get it on the Department's website at a later date. It does take a little bit of time, so it won't be ready immediately following this webinar but hopefully we can get that shortly onto the department's website. And if we're ready to go, I think we can begin to proceed through the slide deck.

- [Kate] Hi Jeff, it's Kate here. Sorry everyone, I think we're just having a couple of issues with the sound coming through from Jeff's end. But it's a bit crackly, Jeff.

- Sorry about that.

- [Kate] But we're just having a look at where everyone's dialing in from. We can see there's quite a good variety of where everyone has dialed in from and we welcome everyone from all the areas that you've come from. It's great to see so many people here today. We might move on to the next part of the Menti, which is what service type do you work in? And so, we've got lots of people from preschool and long daycare and a good percentage of people from other service types as well. Mobile daycare as well. It's great to see everyone here. Right, Jeff, I might just hand back over to you now.

- Is it still crackling or is the audio okay now, Kate?

- [Kate] The audio's fine for me now but if you're having problems with the audio, just drop it into the Q and A for us please.

- Thank you very much. Kate, it looks like the slide deck, for me, is still on the cover but while we're waiting for that to resolve, I will start off with a brief acknowledgement of country. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waterways where we live, work and play. I myself am calling in today from Dharug country and we celebrate the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and their continuing cultural and spiritual connections to country and we recognize the significance of their voices and cultures. We pay our respects to elders past and present and we are committed to nurturing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are the elders of our future. Now, with housekeeping out of the way and if the slide deck is working for everyone else, then I think we are ready to pass on to Joe Parsons who is our acting executive director for Early Childhood Outcomes Commissioning. Joe, over to you.

- Thanks, Jeff. Can you hear me okay?

- Yes, we can.

- Good stuff, thanks very much. Thanks everyone else for making the time this afternoon. Appreciate you've all got very busy schedules, so really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to come along to this session, I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm dialing in from Gadigal country. I'd like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend my respects to any Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander colleagues on the call today. So, as Jeff said, my name's Joe Parsons. I'm the acting Executive director for Early Childhood Outcomes Commissioning. We've been involved in the redesign of Start Strong over the last four or five months really. So, that started with the sector consultation process in August. We've worked very quickly to factor in the feedback we got from the the sector consultation into the guidelines that we released last week. So, that the key purpose of today's session is to run through with you the key features of those guidelines, the 2023 Starts Strong program for both community preschools and long daycare services. It's an opportunity for us to step through, in some detail, as to the key features but also to respond to some of the questions that you've already sent in. So, I'm going to give a quick overview of the new program before handing over to colleagues Meg, Caitlin, Liam and Sonja who will go into a bit more detail about the program features. So, key point to make, I guess, upfront is that Start Strong in 2023, will essentially be the vehicle through which we meet our preschool reform agreement and our affordable preschool commitments. So, these two major investments promote universal access to quality preschool programs for all children across New South Wales. Jump to the next slide, please. So, this just breaks those two commitments down in a bit more details. So, as you can see, affordable preschool will commence from January 2023. It's 1.3 billion investment over four years and it provides fee relief to New South Wales families and support 600 hours a year of access. So, for the first time we're introducing fee relief into long daycare settings, building on the Free Preschool program that currently operates, that is specific to the community preschool sector but from January, fee relief in both long daycare settings and community preschool settings. And then with the Preschool Reform Agreement, some of you may have seen this before but it was signed last year back in December. A agreement between the New South Wales and the Commonwealth Government commits $840 million over four years, commitments in there to improve preschool enrollment and attendance and to maximize the benefit of preschool by improving outcomes for children. So, we might jump, again, to the next slide. Important point to call out here, I guess, is that the way we're structuring the Start Strong program from 2023 is it'll be one program that will deliver multiple objectives. So, there's objectives in the program to improve the affordability of early childhood education, to uplift quality and to drive improved outcomes for children and incentivize increased enrollment and attendance in quality early childhood education programs in the years before school. So, the program will incorporate an outcomes focused approach. This means we can build the link between evidence, the program and performance to influence more effective outcomes for children through improved program design and delivery over time. Just jump into the next slide. So, here is just a quick overview of the new features for the Start Strong program from 2023 and I think I mentioned this at the roadshow a month or so ago but important to think about the architecture, I guess, of the program. So, currently we have three separate Start Strong programs. We have the Community Preschool Program, the Free Preschool Program and then the Long Daycare Program. We're essentially bringing those three programs into one overarching program that has two streams, the Community Preschool Stream and a Long Daycare Stream and both of those have the fee relief component built in. So, as you see on this slide here, there's a more sustainable funding model. We're fortunately moving away from the one year funding agreements that we had over the last couple of years through the Universal Access National Partnership. So, the PRA locks funding in over the four year period, as does the affordable preschool funding that's locked in over the forward estimates. Some additional requirements around ECTs in the program guidelines. We'll go to some of this in more detail as we step through the deck. There's some updates to spending rules, so more flexibility, particularly in the long daycare space around what funding can be used for, particularly in relation to staffing. Funding will be provided on a quarterly basis and the program will move to a calendar year. So, we'll talk in some more detail around the timing for that and we want to make sure the transition to school statements embedded within the program. So, from 2023 it will be a requirement of the program that transition to school statements are completed. There's also a three year old trial that will be commencing in the long daycare sector. Program details will be on the way very soon but we've got some slides to talk about that in a bit more detail. And then there will be some additional requirements around financial accountability and compliance. We'll need to expand how we approach that to capture the new program elements but also to take into account the fact that there's been a significant uplift in funding, both in relation to the program payments that will go to long daycare providers but also the fee relief component as well. So, we'll talk a bit about that. Also wanted to flag upfront and again, we will go into more detail on this but the approach we're taking to multiple enrolments. So, if we could jump to the next slide. Important to call out this at a high level and then both Caitlin and Sonja's team will talk in a bit more detail about what it means for both community preschools and long daycare services. So, important to flag upfront, we know there are a range of reasons as to why a family may enroll their child or children at multiple services. It could be due to a particular family's weekly routines, challenges enrolling their child or children for the required number of hours at one service. So, we recognize there may be a genuine need for families to have these enrolment patterns but we do need to ensure that there's a clear policy position relating to families accessing fee relief. So, the way it will work is that families will need to apply for the fee relief. There will be a declaration and consent form to do this, which will be available very soon. There'll be two versions of that form, tailored to service types, so one for community preschools, one for long daycare. To monitor the fee relief pass through to families, the Department will require some additional data from long daycare services and to assist with this, we've reached out already to third party software providers. We've shared a technical specification with them that outlines the data we need and how and when they will need to provide it and also the need for fee statements to include the fee relief component. So, again, we'll go into some more detail on all of this as we step through the slides but just wanted to call that out as it is, I guess, a feature of the new program from 2023. So, I am now going to throw over to our Community Preschool Team and Liam is going to take us through some of this in a bit more detail. So, over to you Liam.

- Thank you, Joe, and good afternoon everyone. My name is Liam and I'll be speaking to you this afternoon on the program specifics for services that are funded under Start Strong for Community Preschools and some information for our small group of mobile preschool funding program services. I come to you this afternoon from the lands of the Wadi Wadi People of the Dharawal Nation and I too pay my respects to elders past and present and extend this to any Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander People participating in the webinar with us today. Before we jump into the content, I'd like to highlight some of the key themes from the preschools that are emerging from the questions you've provided to us in the registration form as well as from the phone and email inquiries you've raised with us. In particular, we have had a lot of questions around Service Safety Net funding, some of the specifics on fee relief spending rules, the declaration form process and of course, a hot topic is the funding details for next year. With that in mind, we've tailored some of the slides for the community and mobile preschools to cover off these elements, so hopefully I can answer a few of your questions over the next few minutes. Don't fret though, we have time for question and answer at the end and we'll be directly answering more of your questions that don't necessarily fit into these topics as well. But our starting point for the Community Preschool Program is funding rates for the program as it stands. For our participants today who aren't fully up to speed with the program, there are two components of your funding moving forward. These are the program payment, which is what has traditionally been known as Start Strong funding and the fee relief funding, which has previously been delivered to you Time Limited COVID 19 Free Preschool Program, Start Strong free preschool program, which will be ending on New Years eve. The program payment funding rates are based on both the SEIFA band of your service and the hours of enrollment for the children that are enrolled. As you can see, there is a sliding scale which goes from 100% to 0, depending on whether the child's enrolled for 600 hours per year, which generally works out to be 15 hours per week or below. The top rate, which are SEIFA band one to eight services received for all enrollments for 600 hours and that all services, irrespective of location, received for equity enrollments is $7,466 and the full table of rates is available to you in the program guidelines. On the right side, we have our fee relief funding. This funding is only based on the hours of enrollment of the children at your service and as you can see, the sliding scale is more generous, as at the end of the day, the objective of fee relief funding is to provide support to all children enrolled in preschool programs. There is no SEIFA band scaling at all for the fee relief component of your funding and the maximum rate for children enrolled for 600 hours per year is $4,220. You may have seen the rates have increase since the last time we presented to you at the September road shows. I'm pleased to confirm that the funding rates have been increased by 5.5% in acknowledgement of the current state of things. Everything is expensive these days and we want to be able to support services accordingly, so that's why the maximum rate of program funding has increased, as you can see in the box at the bottom left and why the fee relief funding has gone from the lovely rounded figure of $4,000 per year to the higher but less friendly $4,220 per year. Before we move off the funding rates, it's important to acknowledge how things work for the mobile preschool services who are currently funded through the Mobile Preschool Funding Program. These services have been eligible for free preschool programs previously and we can confirm that this is once again the case moving forward. While the program payment specific elements of Start Strong for Community Preschools do not apply, the fee relief component is applicable for mobile preschool funding program services. So, as you can see there, you'll be receiving the same amounts through the same process and the guidelines that community preschools will follow are the same as what you will need to follow. These will be updated in your specific program guidelines very shortly but in the meantime, if you do need the information you'll be able to refer to the Community Preschool's website page for guidance on this. To move on to talk a little bit about the funding allocations, the way that we calculate your funding under Start Strong for Community Preschools has not changed. As in previous years, your funding allocation will be based on the submissions you provide in each annual preschool census. As we move into 2023, your funding will be based on the 2022 annual preschool census and this is for both the program payment component and the fee relief component. We won't be taking fee relief funding away if children are leaving at the end of the year or anything like that. It's all going to be based on the data that you provide to us in census. To the second point there, we are doing our absolute utmost to get your funding details to you as soon as we possibly can. We've heard from you it is important to give you as much notice as we can and we are doing our absolute best to get that information to you in a timely manner. At the very least, you'll be receiving your funding letter from us by the end of term four but we certainly hope that we can get it to you earlier than that. In the meantime, the funding planning tool is available and ready for use. I know lots of services have already started using it and have sent some questions in about it. It's available on the main Start Strong for Community Preschools landing page. It's been updated with the 2023 funding rates that I just referred to and it includes both program payment and fee relief components. You can use your 2022 census submission to give you a guide on how the funding will be calculated. If you're looking for that, you're able to access it on the Early Childhood Contract Management System. It'll be there for you to download in PDF format and you'll be able to input that straight into the calculator. I'll remind all services that the planning tool provides estimates only and the amounts in the tool are not a guarantee of what will be received and if you do have any issues using the planning tool, please get in touch with us, send an email through our funding inbox or give the Information and Enquiries Line a call so that we can give you some assistance with the planning tool. I do want to talk to Service Safety Net as it is a hot topic of discussion and I personally have had a conversation with quite a few Service Safety Net services so far to talk through some of the funding questions that you have. Because it's a popular topic, I want to share some key points and hopefully ease some of the concerns that your services are having regarding how Safety Net status will impact your funding moving forward. As you can see on the left hand side of the slide there, there are six criteria points which a service needs to meet to be eligible for Service Safety Net funding. A service needs to have a licensed capacity of 20 places or fewer. You need to have between five and 20 eligible funded children, eligible funded children are all children in the year before school and three year olds that are eligible for the equity loading. Your service needs to have an ARIA+ classification that is not major cities of Australia, so generally you need to be located outside of the Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle metropolitan areas. You need to have daily fees of less than $55 before the fee relief is passed on, not after you've passed it on, before the initial structure that you have, before you pass it on to the families. And the last point is that the service would need to be receiving less than the Safety Net amount if it wasn't going to be applied. There are a couple of small changes that have been announced as part of the new program but they don't change how eligibility is assessed and they don't have any impact on existing Service Safety Net services. Firstly, the Service Safety Net funding amount has increased from $141,520 in 2022 to $149,320 in 2023. This doesn't mean that you'll get the full 149,320 this financial year, as it'll be halfway between because you've got a bit of 2022 and a bit of 2023 but you can expect that this is the going rate for the 2023 calendar year. There's also one new eligibility criteria. This is the one at the end there that refers to having a lower Service Safety Net amount. This is simply codifying what's always applied, which is that you only get Service Safety Net if the calculations indicate you would be getting less than that if we weren't giving it to you. If the calculations say to us that you'd be getting 160 or $170,000, that's fantastic, you'd be getting that amount. We're not going to give you Service Safety Net just because you meet all of the other criteria. If you are eligible for more funding, we will give you the highest rate that we can and adding this to the criteria, it's really just making this a formal part of the guidelines where it's just been something that we've done previously. Importantly, services that receive Safety Net funding are still part of the Start Strong for Community Preschools Program, which means that you'll be getting the fee relief funding to pass on to the families at your service. You'll need to follow the same spending rules as everyone else and you'll need to bear the Safety Net criteria in mind when you're creating your fee structure, just around that $55 point that is item number five on that list on the left there. But yeah, hopefully this is easing some of the concerns. We've had a few questions asking if Service Safety Net services are eligible for fee relief, that is a big yes. We want you to pass that onto your community, so hopefully that has eased some concerns there. To talk to the spending rules for program payments, we understand that by bringing fee relief into the Start Strong for Community Preschool's umbrella, there's now two different sets of spending rules that you'll need to abide by under the program. We will be making it very clear that you understand how much you receive as program payments and how much you get as fee relief payments so that you can spend the money accordingly. The program payment spending rules appear as they have over the years. You can see them there on the screen. These haven't changed. These are for the operating expenses of your service. You can use these for staff wages and staffing costs. These can be for costs of educational resources for your preschool program. These can be any other things that come up as operational expenses for, you think rent, facility costs, cleaning, maintenance, utilities, all of your operational expenses can be funded through the program payments. Some questions have popped up exactly about what it can be spent on. The key thing that I'll say to you today is to remember that funds are for operational expenses. How you spend the funding at your service is at your discretion, provided that you believe the spending is in line with the program rules that you see there. This wraps up the information on the program payments, so I'll now move in to talk to the fee relief elements of the Start Strong Community Preschools Program that are coming in on the 1st of January. As you heard at the top of the presentation, family declaration forms are being introduced to the Start Strong program. There are similar but unique processes for both long daycare and preschool services. My wonderful colleagues in long daycare will detail the process for those services later but I will focus on how it works for Start Strong for Community Preschools funded services. We have a flow on the screen there that indicates how the declaration forms fit into the funding model. The declaration form will be available very shortly for services to access and start using. It'll be available on the department's website and the good news is that we have the template, we will be uploading it so you won't need to create your own, you'll be able to download ours and we'll expect you to be using that. Once you send out the forms, you'll need to collect those forms back from the families to identify which children need fee relief funding applied to their fees at your service and which children continue to be charged fees as normal as they may be accessing fee relief elsewhere. The fees will be adjusted as necessary, in line with the forms. The guidelines indicate that you will need to acknowledge that fee relief funding is being provided by the department and that it's been used to reduce fees that families are being charged. This may be communicated on regular invoices if you have a process for regular invoicing. If that's not the case, there are other communication channels that you can use. If you would like to see some examples of that, you can refer to the program guidelines where there are a couple of suggestions mentioned as part of the language on this. Once you have all the declaration forms, you will need to store them for record keeping and audit processes, just as you do for other documents that you've got. Enrollment forms, evidence of equity status, this is another document that we'll need you to keep on you so that if you get asked to produce them in an audit, that you have them available for us. But at the end of the day, you do not need to send the forms to the department, you just need to have them on record. So, we won't be asking you to send copies of all of the forms for all of your enrolments to us. That is for you to collect and store. As mentioned, there will be a way to return fee relief funding to the department where it isn't used. We will establish where the fee relief funding was applied through our normal processes. You'll be concluding the census as normal for the families that have returned consent forms and once the data has been received and processed, we will notify services where adjustments need to occur. More information on this process will come out next year. On the topic of how the department will have visibility on multiple enrollments across the sectors, as you can see there, between the long daycare data capture and the annual preschool census process, the department will have the information it needs to understand how multiple enrolments are occurring across the sector. We've had quite a few questions, so we've put together a few case studies that you'll see on one of the following slides and in the long daycare space as well so that we can explain the spending rules and try and make it as clear as possible to you to make things a bit easier. Before I get into the case study for the community and mobile preschools, I'll briefly summarize the spending rules the for fee relief and how it works under the Start Strong for Community Preschools program. So, the primary intention for funding is in the name. It's there to reduce fees and notably, it's there to reduce fees for eligible children for up to 600 hours of enrollment. This is largely in line with previous free preschool payment programs. However, here it's not delivering free, it is ensuring that you pass on the full amount of fee relief funding you have received per child. We've passed that funding on and you still have excess funds after you've passed it on for 600 hours of enrollment where in this case it would be where your fees are zero and you still have funds left over. The money should be used to reduce additional costs to families as this is in line with the objective of making preschool more affordable for the families of New South Wales. Finally, where you've done all of the above and there is still a surplus, funds can be spent in line with the program payment spending rules that we talked to earlier. To demonstrate how the fee relief can be passed through, we have a comparison here, so we will be comparing the pair. The services have the same age groups, same fee relief income, you might think same soup contributions. I'm not very good at that but in all seriousness, there's plenty of similarities for these services but the big difference is in the fees and the levies. This is to be expected because every community has different costs and different needs. The rates have been updated to make sense from a maths point of view. I apologise if I haven't got this quite right. I've done my best, it's been a while since I did year 12 maths and I hope that it's simple enough to demonstrate how the spending rules work. So, if we go onto the next slide that has our examples, we'll have a look at how the money flows for Service A and Service B. For Service A, which is in the middle column there, some of the $168,800 has been spent on fee relief but not all. The fees at Service A are now zero and there are still funds remaining. For Service B, however, in the column on the right, the full fee relief allocation has been directed to the fees and the fees have been greatly reduced from the services fee structure before fee relief to the new rates that you see there. It's important to note here that this may mean that you have two sets of fees. You may call it two tier structure. I saw that in one of the questions that was submitted. At the end of the day we want you to be able to set your fees as you would each year and then use the fee relief funding you receive from us to subsidise those accordingly. You'll be expected to pass on the full amount you receive per child and if you need some assistance with individual business planning on how to set fees and whatnot, you may be able to contact the Peak Bodies if you are a member. Where you still have fee relief funding remaining like service A does in this case, we follow the spending rules in order. As you can see, Service A has enough fee relief funding remaining to cover the costs that were expected to be covered by levies that families would've provided. As you can see in the Service B box, this doesn't mean you can't charge levies or third day fees, et cetera, et cetera, but in this example Service B certainly can charge those fees as those used for their fee relief funding. But where you have levies in place and you have excess fee relief funding, it is expected that you reduce these as much as possible. In the example that we've presented here for Service A, the levies that they were planning to be charged have been covered by the fee relief funding that the service received from the department and that still leaves them with a surplus of $68,800. At the end of the day, if you still have fee relief funding left over after all that, which we expect that some services likely will, that's when it can be directed to the operating expenses in line with Start Strong. That's it for Start Strong Preschool specific information at this point, there's more to come for community preschools and mobiles but these are items that cover both sectors, so we'll be hearing about them a bit later on. But for now, I'll be passing on to Meagan who'll be speaking to the Start Strong Long Daycare information.

- Thanks, Liam. That was a lot of valuable information for community and mobile preschools. I am Meagan, a program coordinator in the Preschool Funding Team and firstly, I would like to acknowledge that I am coming to you from the lands of the Wiradjuri People and I would like to acknowledge elders past, present and emerging. Next slide, please. Funding rates for Start Strong Long Daycare. We had a lot of inquiries coming through from the webinar registration and on the phone and from email inquiries. On your screen are some of the questions that we have been sent that we will answer throughout this section of the webinar. Questions including when funding will be received, child equity and does the 2023 Start Strong funding have any impacts on the 2022-'23 Start Strong funding that has already been paid to services? Next slide, please. Being able to release the final figures and information about Start Strong Long Daycare is really exciting to our team. The initial Start Strong payment for eligible services is calculated based on the New South Wales enrollment data provided by the Australian Government from the representation week 23rd to the 29th of May, 2022. The funding adjustments will be applied by the end of 2023 to reflect changes in enrollments using data from a representative period in early 2023. This enrollment data will include children who are at least four years old on or before the 31st of July, 2023. The new 2023 funding allocation does not impact the 2022-'23 funding allocation. Services will not need to repay any of the funding from the 2022-'23 funding because they have now received 2023 funding. As you can see on the left hand side, the program payment is scaled for enrolments above and below 600 hours. There are also additional loadings for children who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and services that are located in areas of relative socioeconomic disadvantage, meaning services that are in a geographic location with a SEIFA Decile of one or two. With this in mind, for children that are enrolled for more than 600 hours, the base annual funding is $960 and the loaded rate is $1,440. For children that are enrolled for less than 600 hours, the base annual funding is $643 and the loaded rate is $965. On the right hand side is our information about the fee relief payment. Eligible children will receive up to $2,110 per year to support the fee relief and as Liam touched on earlier, we have increased it from the initial amount we introduced in September of $2,000. The funding is not mean tested and will not have an impact on the family's childcare subsidy. Fee relief funding is paid to services for them to pass through to families. To simplify the distribution of fee relief, services provide families with a flat rate for fee relief distributed across a number of weeks that the service operates. The fee relief is not allocated to a specific day of attendance but just a weekly reduction of fees. Any outstanding gap fee after the childcare subsidy and fee relief payment have been applied would be paid by the family. Start Strong payments for both fee relief and program payments will occur in quarterly installments. The first in January for the period of January to March 2023, the second in April for the period April to June 2023, the third in July for period July to September 2023 and the fourth in October for the period October to December 2023. Also noting that the payment will not be made until the Early Childhood Outcomes Commission program funding agreement terms and conditions are accepted in the Early Childhood Contract Management System, otherwise known as ECCMS. Next slide, please. Throughout consultation we heard from the sector about the problems you're experiencing, including the impacts from COVID and other workforce issues have placed a great strain on many services. The redesign of the program and increase in funding coming into long daycare sector through the Preschool Reform Agreement is nearly doubling and provides an opportunity to allow more flexibility in how we guide services to use the funding. From 2023, the spending rules enable services to continue to use the funding for functional and educational resources. However, funding can also be used to improve pay and conditions, help attract and retain staff and improve quality of preschool programs. Next slide, please. We have been working in the background with software providers and they're working on a technical solution to record where a declaration form has been provided and consent given. Additionally, updating the fee statements to show how the fee relief is being applied. Services will need to provide the consent or declaration form for the parents to fill out. They will inform the software provider or system where the family has applied the fee relief and given consent. This may be in the form of a tick box. The department will then provide funding to long daycare services based on the enrollment data by the Commonwealth from May 2022. The software will then apply the fee relief to fee invoices or statements. Services must store the declaration form and they do not need to send them into the department. However, they may be requested during the audit process to provide that form to us. At scheduled points throughout the year, data must be provided to the department and this will be shared with the Commonwealth. Services will be required to return any unallocated fee relief and this will be done through an adjustment process. Next slide, please. So, this slide provides an illustration only on how a service might determine the amount of fee relief to allocate a family and what the impacts will be for families in term of improving affordability. A family sends their five year old child to a long daycare preschool program with a daily session fee of $117. They receive the childcare subsidy which leaves a family to pay a daily gap fee of $116. The child attends the service two days per week for a total weekly gap fee of $32.90. The service operates for 40 weeks. The service will then apply the $52.75 fee relief leaving the family of a gap fee of zero but there is a remaining amount of $19.85 from the fee relief. So, what happens to the remaining amount of $19.85 per week that can't be used to reduce the family's fees? The service has any additional fees such as the $19.85. First of all, this needs to be provided to the families to reduce any fees. If all the family fees are covered, then the service is able to use the residual funds as per the spending rules for the program funding such as purchasing functional and educational resources or staff development. Next slide, please. In addition to other changes to the Start Strong Program, you may have heard that there will be a trial for three year old children in long daycare. The New South Wales Government has committed over $64 million to support the participation of three year olds in quality preschool programs in long daycare services. The trial will begin in early 2023 and run for two years. The trial is proposed to be universal. This means that all services eligible to participate in the Start Strong Long Daycare 2023 Program will be involved. The trial will provide funding for three year olds, however, the fee relief is not part of the trial. Similarly, to four and five year olds, loading will be applied for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and for all attending a service considered to be in an area of relative disadvantage. Details and guidelines will be provided soon about the trial. Next slide, please. I will now hand it over to Caitlin and Sonja to discuss some Start Strong guidelines that affect both community preschools and long daycare services.

- Wonderful, thanks Meagan. Hello, everybody. My name's Caitlin Anear and I'd also like to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from the lands of the Gadigal People today and add my respect to elders past, present and emerging. We've received quite a few questions about how the fee relief should be calculated and one of the main points that we wanna call out is that it's not to be applied for any specific day of attendance, it's really about being applied to their weekly enrollment. So, if we can just move to the next slide and I'll walk you through two different examples about what we mean. So, the first one is for a long daycare service that is open and operating for 50 weeks of the year. Child one attending this service has requested to access the fee relief from the service and because fee relief for long daycare services is not scaled for hours of enrolment, they're eligible for the full $2,110, regardless of how many hours they might be enrolled to attend the service. The service will divide the total fee relief amount of $2,110 over the 50 weeks of the year that they operate, resulting in $42.20 of fee relief each week for child one and their family. A second example is for a community preschool. So, community preschool B's open for 40 weeks of the year. Child two attends this service for more than 600 hours, meaning that they are eligible for the full $4,220 in fee relief. So, the service divides the total fee relief of $4,220 over the 40 weeks that they operate and this results in $105.50 of saving for child two each week. We just jump to the next one, thank you. We also had lots and lots of questions about what happens when children are leaving services and joining services throughout the year. And so, this example is to try to explain how the fee relief will work. So, this one is for a long daycare again and as in the other example, it's open for 50 weeks of the year and child one has applied for the fee relief and will be eligible for $42.20 per week of fee relief. However, child one ends up leaving the service after only 13 weeks of enrolment. The child has used $548.60 of the free relief, meaning there is $1,561.40 remaining. This money doesn't get paid out to the family of child one. The fee relief must be used by children that are enrolled in your service. So, the service needs to retain that remaining $1,500 until they have a child ready to take over that enrolment. So, in this example, child number two was on a wait list for the service and can commence as soon as child one leaves. They're really eager to get in. So, child two has also filled out the consent form and has asked to have the fee relief applied at this service and they're eligible for the full $2,110 over the entire year. So, because they've enrolled and there's only 37 weeks left of that year, they will be eligible to receive the remaining $1,561.40 that was left over from child one. So, they will receive the same amount of $42.20 per week of fee relief for the weeks that they're enrolled in that service. Where there might be a gap between child one leaving and child two starting up, the service can use that fee relief funding. It won't be very much, for $42 a week for a couple of weeks we'd be looking at just over 100, $150. That money can actually be used in line with the spending rules for the program payment. So, services won't have to try and provide that money back to the department for some gaps in enrolments for children that are accessing the fee relief at their service. We also had heaps and heaps of questions about multiple enrolments and we really wanted to provide some clarity about what service responsibilities are in this space and what they won't be as well so you can be comfortable with what we're asking you to do. So, services are responsible for distributing and collecting their parent declaration forms. They're responsible for ensuring that the fee relief is provided to the families who have requested it through that consent and declaration form and also for retaining copies of the declaration form for the audit purposes that both Meagan and Liam have described. What services aren't responsible for is monitoring families that they know attend multiple services, checking that parents are correctly claiming the fee relief, other than making sure they fill out the form, following up with other services to confirm whether or not fee relief has been applied at their service. Any sort of recovery action of overpaid monies to families where perhaps they claimed that fee relief incorrectly or repaying any money back to the department if it turns out that some funding was provided to ineligible parents. So, services won't have to play any role in that space at all, it's really just about distributing, collecting the consent forms and then making sure that the fee relief is applied based on the information that was in the consent forms and who had asked for the free relief to be applied. I will hand over now to Sonja to go through another couple of slides.

- Great, thank you Caitlin. Hi, everyone, my name is Sonja Herrmann and I'm the manager of Preschool Funding One. I am coming to you from the beautiful and very warm land of the Dharug People. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging as well. I will talk to you very briefly about implementation support and next steps in general. After that, we'll move on to our questions and answer section. So, implementation support, as previously mentioned, we will have that support in place before the end of term and further details will be shared with you about this very, very soon. The implementation support will be available for all eligible services and providers, which means that covers long daycare community and mobile preschool. During the September roadshow webinar we asked you what topics you'd like to hear about in future webinars and through other support content and we collected your feedback via Menti. So, on the right of the screen, you can see some of the key themes that were raised, which include budgeting, spending rules, acquittals and accountabilities, fee setting and communication with families. So, thank you very much for your submissions on the implementation support content. Your feedback will be shared with the contracted providers and it'll inform some more content. In addition to this, the services will also be able to access implementation support for individual service questions to assist you in your delivery of stuff and in particular the fee relief. Next slide, please. Here you can see an overview of what's been happening so far and what will come next. So, back in August, we held the sector consultations which informed the Start Strong program. The sector consultation reports that came out of those consultation sessions were released in September and you can access them on our website. They are on the Resource Section for Community Preschools as well as Long Daycare webpage. The Start Strong program guidelines were released last week as you know and are, of course, available for review online and if you have questions, you can, of course, direct them to us. Next up, we will be releasing funding notification letters and I'm sure you all are keen to receive them. So, these letters will outline our services funding allocations for 2023. So, they include your program payment, as well as your fee relief payment, so they will be separately displayed on the letters. The program will go live from January 2023 and payments will be progressed soon after the launch. So, a quick note here that the program payments for community and mobile preschools will be released in December as usual, so they won't go in January. The fee relief payments will, however, follow in early 2023. So, that's all we have prepared for slides and we'll now head into our Q and A element of the webinar.

- [Jeff] Thank you very much, Sonja. Now, there are a lot of questions coming through the Zoom call. Thank you very much to everybody who submitted them. We do have a few questions that we have compiled based on these ones submitted when you registered for this webinar. So, we'll address those first and if we have time we'll try to get through a few more in the Q and A. So, in the first question we have, "Why is the department limiting parent's ability to access fee relief to one service?" Joe, can we throw this one over to you?

- Sure, thanks, Jeff. So, I guess the first thing to say is that the New South Wales Government's committed to ensuring that all children in New South Wales can participate in 600 hours of quality preschool education in the year or two years before school, no matter their circumstances or where they live. So, we've put in place this declaration process to allow families to nominate the service where they wish to receive their fee relief. In part, what we're doing is acting on feedback from the sector and from families. We have also considered a number of other options for addressing the issue but it did come back very strongly through the consultation process that we ran throughout August that we needed to address the issue of multiple enrolments. So, the declaration form approach is modelled on access to at least 600 hours per year to a quality preschool program in the years before school, which obviously, as we all know, is a recommended minimum level of participation. The approach encourages continuity of care where that's possible and incentivises families to enroll their child in one service for more hours to improve educational outcomes. So, we do recognise there may be instances where families need to enroll their child at more than one service but this nomination process will ensure that the allocated New South Wales Government Fee Relief Funding is distributed once for all eligible families. Back to you, Jeff.

- [Jeff] Thank you very much, Joe. The next question that we had that popped up quite often, a common question, "What happens to fee relief if a child is sick or does not attend the service for the day?" Caitlin, can I pass this one to you?

- Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Jeff and it's a quick and easy one to answer as well. The fee relief is linked only to enrollment and not attendance. So, if a child is sick for a couple of days or doesn't attend the service, it won't have any impact on the fee relief.

- [Jeff] Fantastic. Unfortunately, we are at time now. If people are able to hang on for another 10 minutes, we'll keep going through the Q and As as there are quite a few to go through and we would like to get through a few more if possible. But obviously if you have other commitments-

- Yeah, Jeff, I wonder if what we do because we had made a commitment to the questions that have been sent in, if we can cover those off, I think we're probably going to run slightly over doing that. But the questions that have come through on the chat, we'll make a commitment to responding in writing. So, we have got a draft FAQ document that we've made a commitment to upload onto the website. So, what we can do is take the additional questions we've got today, respond to those in writing but if we can try and cover as many of those that have been sent in ahead of this session, that would be good.

- [Jeff] Sure thing. Let's see here. The next question that we had was, "Do I need to apply for this funding like I had to apply for free preschool?" Sonja, are you able to answer this one?

- Yes, that's obviously relevant, in particular for community preschool, than mobile preschools. This will not be an opt-in opt-out model like starting free preschool was. That means it will be integrated into the new Start Strong Community Preschool program from 2023. We do know though, if anyone has concerns or questions around this, if you haven't opted in this year and you have questions, please email us. Our email address is ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au and we'll happy to have a chat with you.

- Thank you, Sonja. Now, onto the next one. "Are we able to increase fees due to CPI or other cost pressures?" Catiline, perhaps one for you?

- Excellent, thanks, Jeff. I just lost... Fees are expected to be maintained at fee levels of previous years where fees were charged to families, adjusted for CPI across the time period. However, we do understand that the cost pressures that services are facing and there'll be circumstances where it will be necessary to adjust the fees that are above CPI, such as due to increases in operating costs or rent, those sorts of things. So, to be able to do so, services just must retain evidence to support the fee increase.

- Awesome, thank you, Caitlin. Now, this next question, "Isn't this inconsistent," this being the information provided in the webinar, "Inconsistent with messaging relating to the government commitment to introduce a universal pre-kindergarten year?" Joe, this one for you.

- Thanks, Jeff and it's a very good question. So, I think as most of you'll be aware, there was a government commitment to invest 5.8 billion to introduce a new universal pre-kindergarten year in the year before primary school for every child by the end of the decade. So, this investment will obviously make sure that all children, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, children in regional rural remote services and communities can access a pre-kindergarten year and are given every opportunity for a bright future. We're going to work closely with the early childhood education and care sector, with schools, with families and other experts to determine the delivery, the locations and the funding models for pre-kindergarten. The transition to that model, so from the current 600 hour model up to an up to five day per week model is significant. It's complex. There's infrastructure considerations. There's, as we said, funding model considerations and workforce considerations. So, it requires a lot of detailed planning. It's not a model we can just jump to but the key takeaway, I think, is that work will take place, the planning work will take place in consultation with the sector and wider stakeholders to ensure that that is implemented effectively.

- [Jeff] Thank you very much, Joe. This question, obviously, this next one came up quite often, so good that we're addressing this one now. "What support will be available to services that are transitioning to this new funding model?" Caitlin, please.

- I'll just reiterate, I suppose, what Sonja went through in relation to the implementation support that will be available. So, we're very close to being able to have that ready to go and we'll be sharing more details on that very, very soon so you can begin to access those services.

- [Jeff] Thanks, Caitlin. Let's see, last of the ones that we collected from the registered questions, "What information will families need to provide to access the fee relief?" Caitlin, back to you immediately.

- Yeah, that's me again. So, families will need to consent to the service sharing some of their child's information with the Department for Education and the Commonwealth Government and these details may include the child's name, date of birth and their child enrolment ID. The service will provide families with that declaration and consent form and that explains all of the information about what we're collecting and why we're collecting it. So, as soon as those consent forms are available, you'll be able to see all of that information and so will families and parents.

- [Jeff] Awesome, thank you, Caitlyn.

- Jeff, I just wonder because we've run over already and I had seen in the chat that a number of people do need to leave. So, I just wonder if what we do, as I mentioned earlier, is let's take the questions that we've received during this session and we'll provide written responses. There's no way we're going to get through all of them now and I think to do justice to the questions, it's probably best that rather than rush through them, we actually just provide written responses. So, there's a couple of things coming out of this session and based on the feedback we've got through the chat, so key that we get the declaration forms out to you as quickly as possible. So, we will definitely prioritise that. With regards to the FAQ, we will also prioritize the responses to the additional questions that we've got through this session today. So, both of those things will be coming out in the very, very near future. But I'd just like to thank everyone for their time. It's really, really appreciated for the additional questions. They too are appreciated and as I said, we'll get those responses out very, very soon.

- All right, well thank you, Joe. Sorry to everybody who submitted questions, we did have a few technical issues, well I did personally, hopefully that didn't impact too, too much. And yes, we will endeavor to get those questions answered in one form or another. Thank you, again, to everybody who took the time out. We know the 4:30 to 5:30 slot's a hard one to attend, so we appreciate you joining us today. But hopefully, this webinar has been of some use to you and the recording will be posted on the department's website in the coming days, weeks, we'll say, hopefully shortly. But until next time, thank you very much and all the best. Hopefully, we can provide answers soon. Take care, bye.

- Thanks, Jeff, thanks everyone.

Good morning to everyone who's joining. We've still got lots of people coming into the room, so we'll just wait a couple of minutes and then we'll get started.

- Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We'll give people a little bit more time. I can see the numbers are still going up. Wonderful to see so many of you here this morning. Thank you for joining us. And the numbers are still climbing. I may make a start. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the New South Wales Department of Education's Webinar on the Safe transportation of children in Early Childhood Education and Care Services. This session has been developed by the New South Wales's Regulatory Authority in collaboration with Kids and Traffic, who are the subject matter experts in the safe transportation of children. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Louisa Coussens. I'm the Manager of the Quality Practice and Regulatory Support Team in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Services, Early Childhood Education in the Department. You may also know us as the New South Wales Regulatory Authority. I acknowledge this I'm meeting with you today from the lands of the Darkinjung People. I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of various lands from which you are all joining us today and pay my respects to elders past and present. And I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Highlander people joining us today. I think we may have a short video to show you now.

- [Kooloora preschoolers] We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge Aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land. We promise.

- Thank you, Kooloora Preschoolers. That was gorgeous. So, first of all, some housekeeping. Your microphone, video and chat functions will be disabled during the webinar. However, we do encourage you to use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen to ask any questions. You can type your question into the Q&A, and you can also see and vote on other people's questions if you'd like those answered by using the Thumbs Up button. We'll prioritize the questions with the most votes and try to answer those during the webinar. If we don't get to your question today, please reach out to our information and inquiries team who are always available to support you with any questions related to service operation. You can contact them on 1800-619-113, or by emailing ececd@det.nsw.edu.au. We'll be using Menti during this session. So please have your phone or another web browser ready to scan or enter the code on the screen when it comes up. So you can participate in the interactive components of the session. The session today is going to be recorded. In today's session then I'll be talking through the key regulatory requirements relating to transportation and education and care services, and some guidance available to support providers and services who may be new to transporting children. Today, we're particularly talking about transportation that is not part of an excursion. For example, when a service transports children to and from home, or to and from school. The regulations for this transportation differ from the regulations for excursions. The transportation of children is a high-risk activity. And as the Regulatory Authority, part of our role is to provide education and guidance to the sector on the regulatory requirements, which is what we are doing today. This information is important if your service is thinking about, about to start, or new to offering transport, or if you are new to a service who offers transport. I will then hand over to Louise Cosgrove from Kids and Traffic to explore some key risks and considerations when transporting children in early childhood education and outside school hours care settings and share practical risk mitigation strategies that you could implement at your service to keep children safe. Before I do that, though, I'm going to hand over to my colleague, Yasmina to say a few words.

- Thank you, Louisa. Hi everybody. My name's Yasmina. I am representing the New South Wales Regulatory Authority, a distinct business unit inside the Department of Education. I'll start by acknowledging that I'm coming from Dharug land. And I pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging. In terms of the Regulatory Authority For those that may be new to the sector, we regulate over 5,900 services. And in that we include outside school hours care, family daycare, long daycare, preschools, and vacation care. So today's presentation is relevant to any type of service that engages in those transport activities as explained by Louise earlier. Regulators traditionally focus their attention and efforts on areas of greatest risk, and they are mandated to do so. I would say today that I'm sure that providers and service staff share that focus with me. And this is exactly why we have decided to focus today's presentation on one of those areas of increased risk to children, which is transportation. As the New South Wales Regulatory Authority, we are mandated under the national law and regulations to bring these types of information sessions to you. And we are also accountable to families in New South Wales to ensure that they are able to trust and have confidence in the way that services operate each and every day. So today's session is therefore critically important in enabling your service to achieve consistent standardized risk management around this particular activity, and to embed routine practices around transportation of children as they attend your service. I'll hand back to Louise now. I hope you enjoy today's presentation.

- Thanks, Yasmina. When transporting children, you might have a service bus. Or, for some educators such as family daycare educators, you might transport children in your car. In today's session as you've heard, we're taking the time to acknowledge that transportation is a high-risk activity. Transportation process can present serious risks to children's safety. Transportation may present additional risks to children depending on how it occurs and how transitions between a vehicle and the service premises or other locations are managed. These risks apply equally to single trips or during periods of regular transportation. In some cases, poor practices can lead to tragic consequences. As a sector, we must all continue to improve safe practices, to prevent serious incidents and ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of children on transport. As providers, leaders, and educators in your service, I'd like to acknowledge the work that you do to ensure children's health, safety, and wellbeing during the transport process. You each play a crucial role in ensuring that the children in your care are safe. This role includes understanding safe transport requirements, policies, procedures, and practices, and implementing best practice at your service. This is particularly important if your service is thinking about, about to start, or new to offering transport, or if you are new to a service that offers transport. This includes outside school hours care services who are considering applying for the Department's transport grant. The transport grant is currently available as part of the Department's 2022 to 2023 grants program. The transport grant funds transport solutions to improve access to before and after school care services. Access for children in small regional and rural schools is a particular priority of this grant. We'll provide a link in the chat for further information, including eligibility and how to apply. Let's start to think about transport requirements with a Menti poll and regulatory quiz. Firstly, we'd like to know more about our attendees at today's session. There should be a QR code on your screen. Using your phone please scan the QR code or go to menti.com and enter the code on your screen. There are three questions that you'll be prompted to answer in the Menti. We're interested to know what type of service you currently work in, and whether you are currently providing transport for children or will do in the future. This information is helpful for the Department to know which service types have joined us today. And how many of those services currently or in the future will provide transport for children. We'll have a quick look at the results as they come through. So what type of service do you work in? Okay. So most of you are from long daycare services. Have lots from preschool. Lots from family daycare as well. And outside school hours care. State regulated services. It's lovely to see such a wide spread of different service types here today. Great. Okay, let's move on to the second question. Does your service currently provide transport for children? Yes or no. The numbers are still climbing. Okay. Well it's almost half an hour. We've got a good cross section. That's great. Thank you. And how about in the future? So will your service provide transport in the future? And that could include the fact that you are already providing transport and you will continue, or if you aren't providing transport, but you will do. Okay. So for most of you, that's a, yes. You will be providing transport for children in the future. Okay. Good. All right. Thank you. Stay on Menti. We're going to move onto our regulatory quiz now. So these are a few questions to get us thinking about the transport regulations, but please note they don't cover all of the requirements. So the first question. True or false. I can include a one-off permission in a child's enrolment form to state that the child can be transported to and from the service. And this permission can be completed once and never reviewed. True or false? I can see most of you've answered false, and you would be right. So, the key information there, the key giveaway is, never reviewed. So for regular transportation, the authorization must be obtained once in a 12-month period. However, if your transport arrangements change and the circumstances are substantially different from before, you'll need updated authorizations. All right, next question. So regulation 102C lists everything that needs to be included in a transport risk assessment. Can you name three of these things? Okay. Route, yes. Type of vehicle. Location. Times. Mode of transport. Yes. Great. Number of adults. That's right. Restraints. Seatbelts. Great. That's right. Water hazards, yes. Good one. And the embarking and disembarking procedures. That's an important one. Great. All right. We'll move on to question three. Lots of great answers there. Thank you. So can you provide an example of when a transport risk assessment needs to be updated? Good. Yes, that's right. So a transport risk assessment needs to be updated when there's a change or changes in your transport circumstances, which mean the circumstances relevant to the risk assessment are no longer substantially the same, but for each occasion that children are transported. So yes. Some examples. Route changes. Destination change. Yes. That's right. If circumstances change. That's right. That's right. Good. Okay, so some of those circumstances can be the numbers of children being transported. Substantial changes in the route. Yes. That's right. Right. All right. Let's move on to the next question. Where can you find information regarding the requirements for seatbelts and safety restraints? Yes. Kids and Traffic. Well done. Good. Good. So you can find information about the requirements for seatbelts and safety restraints from Kids and Traffic, or by visiting the Kids and Traffic and Transport for New South Wales websites. Yes. I can see that. They're excellent. Good. We'll hear more about seatbelts and safety restraints from Kids and Traffic in the session this morning. Let's move on to question five. What needs to be considered to ensure effective supervision when transporting children? So what are some of the things that you might consider? And these could be context specific, so different depending on the circumstances of your particular service. So ratios. That's right. Children's needs. That's right. Picking up some great things in that word cloud. Fabulous. Thank you. I'm going to move on. We've got lots to get through this morning. Thank you very much for participating in that. It's important that service providers make the necessary considerations to ensure that your services transportation is compliant with the national law and regulations. On this slide are the regulations relating to transportation. The regulations apply only to services that provide or arrange transportation of children as part of the education and care service other than as part of an excursion. A common example of this is the journey with children between the service premises and home or school. It's important to know that these regulations apply across all service types. I'll talk through these four briefly. For services that provide or arrange transportation of children other than as part of an excursion, the approved provider must ensure that the service has policies and procedures for transportation. And these must be specific to transportation, not combined with policies and procedures for excursions. Regulation 102B states that a transport risk assessment must be conducted before the transport, before the service transports children. And regulation 102C specifies the matters that must be considered in this risk assessment as a minimum. ACEQA provides a template for this transportation risk assessment, Risk assessments identify and assess risks that the transportation of a child may pose and specify how those risks will be managed and minimized. Regulation 102D requires services to obtain authorization for a child to be transported. This authorization must be given by a parent or other person authorized by the parent and named in the child's enrolment record as having the authority to authorize transportation of the child. Regulation 102D also tells you the information that must be included in your transport authorizations. We encourage you to read these regulations to check your understanding of the specific requirements for transportation other than as part of an excursion. When transporting children, services must ensure they continue to comply with other key regulatory requirements. Including adequate supervision. Ensuring children are protected from harm and hazard. Following your services transport and other policies and procedures. Suitable staffing arrangements. Adhering to maximum numbers of children according to your service approval. Maintaining accurate attendance records. Preparations for responding to a first aid incident and other legal requirements and best practice standards. For example, ensuring suitable driver's licenses or seatbelts and child restraints. For further information on these requirements, including links to specific regulations there is a link on the screen, which we'll also provide in the chat. I'll now hand over to Louise from Kids and Traffic. Thank you.

- Thanks Louise. Alright good morning, everybody. My name's Louise Cosgrove and I'm team leader at Kids and Traffic. Thanks so much for joining us online today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land where I am today, the Wallumedegal Clan of the Dharug Nation, and also to pay respect to all of the traditional custodians of the lands on which you're placed today as well. To the people who live, work, learn, and grow in these places and to all who have come before them. So just to give you a bit of background about Kids and Traffic, we're the New South Wales, Early Childhood Road Safety Education Program. Our program's funded by Transport for New South Wales, and it's delivered in partnership with Macquarie University. We provide free road safety education professional development, resources, advice, and support to education and care services across New South Wales. But we're also part of a broader comprehensive road safety education program funded by Transport for New South Wales. That's implemented with our program partners in the New South Wales Department of Education, Catholic Schools New South Wales, and the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales. Currently we have a suite of eight Professional Development Workshops for education and care services, which are either offered face to face or online. And in addition to our workshops for education and care services, we also work with TAFEs and the RTOs and universities to deliver workshops to pre-service educators. Kids and Traffic supports and works with a range of stakeholders around road safety, including local government police and health. And we also have a wide range of teaching and learning resources that can be used as part of your services road safety education programs. These include animations, stories, songs, books, and games. And we have loads of templates and samples on our website that are free to access. So as mentioned, we've been working with the Department on a range of resources to support the safe transportation of children, particularly as part of service provision. And that's what we're going to take a deeper dive into today. And it is great to see that so many of our participants have such a strong knowledge of regulations in this area. So what we'll begin by looking at are the key risks when transporting children. So firstly, that a child is unaccounted for. If we can just have the next part of that slide, please. So that could be that the child isn't at the collection point for after school care, or for an at home pickup, or that they're unaccounted for on arrival at the service. So definitely transitioning from one location to another, obviously carries greater risk for a child to be unaccounted for. Secondly, the risk that a child's injured or harmed. This could happen while in the vehicle when embarking or disembarking, and also during transition between the vehicle and the service premises or other location. But these times of key risk are also not mutually exclusive. And sadly we know there have been cases where a child who is unaccounted for has been injured or harmed as a result. So most importantly, what we are going to have a look at is how we can mitigate these very serious risks. We know services are required to have policies and procedures in place to ensure their practices protect children from risk of harm during transportation. So today we'll consider the important elements of clarity and communication to ensure these policies, procedures, and practices are implemented on every trip. So keeping these key risks in mind, we'll take a look at some of the broad mitigation strategies that can be implemented by services, and also the documents in the safe transport toolkit that can support you. We'll also consider some specific examples of practices from services that regularly transport children. Next slide, please. I would just like to say, I know we've got a lot of family day care carers in our participants for the session today. Throughout the presentation, I will be talking about having multiple educators or staff members check different things. Obviously in family day care it really comes down to you. So, please keep that in mind when we're talking about multiple educators, checking that to just relate it back to your individual circumstances, where you are the key educator in that situation. So we all know that when services provide or arrange for the transportation of children, it's crucial to ensure compliance with all regulatory requirements and the policies, procedures, and practices are in place to ensure children's health, safety, and wellbeing. Engaging with all relevant stakeholders, whether it be providers, leaders, educators, volunteers, families, children's schools, or other third parties is absolutely critical at the planning or review stage. Each stakeholder brings their own viewpoint and can provide a different lens to view policies and procedures through. So for this reason, it's really important to make sure the end users of the documents, the frontline educators and staff have input into their formation. Each service should have a process in place for familiarization, with policies, procedures, and risk assessments. Staff induction, and ongoing education and training should be provided for all involved. When services have established processes for induction and education on policies, procedures, and practices to minimize risk, all those involved in transporting children are more likely to understand their roles and their responsibilities. So this might involve including transportation as a regular agenda item at staff meetings, engaging Kids and Traffic Professional Development Workshops, reviewing policies, procedures, and risk assessments regularly, and including transportation in any induction for new staff. Working through these documents in a practical sense, rather than just passing on documents to be read by staff also enhances understanding. So you might consider including visuals with photos or videos of particular practices, such as the steps involved in checking and clearing the vehicle. These can really be of great benefit. Flow charts of processes to be followed when something goes wrong are also a beneficial tool to support frontline staff at times of heightened stress. So this might be the case if you have an emergency, like a crash, or a medical incident, or if a child's not present for collection. Processes for familiarization with policies, procedures, and risk assessments should be documented and added to the service calendar to ensure that crucial steps are not missed. Providers and leaders may work exceedingly hearted, ensuring policies and procedures are documented, but not have clear mechanisms for communicating these to the frontline staff who will be implementing them. So it really is crucial to take the time to work through these important documents together with all the people who will be responsible for implementing them day to day and to document that. So, you know, when it comes to assessment and reading you also have that opportunity to share that too. Okay, if we just go on to the next slide. Yes. That green one, that's it. Thank you. So I did mention having flow charts in place too, for those sort of incidents that might happen that might cause stress. So this is just a flow chart that can be found in the safe transport kit. And it's one of several, and it highlights the procedure for what we need to do if a child isn't at school collection. So it really points out who's responsible for which action. And there's also a timeframe included there as well. So those sorts of incidents can be high stress and also involve a lot of communication between the different parties and stakeholders. So it's really good to have those things made very clear. So do take a look at the documents that's in the "Policy and Procedure" document that particular one there. Next slide, please. Okay, we also need to have clear procedures and tools for documenting children's attendance. So this is really crucial to ensuring children's safety during the transport process. Services need to establish and explicitly communicate these procedures to all staff involved in the transport process. This should include how absences are recorded when notified by families, and also how any unexplained absences are investigated. Confusion can often be caused if a parent calls the service to notify them of a child's absence but the child's name isn't removed from the transport attendance register for that day. This situation is also quite common in outside of school hours care, but it's usually the case that the parent has notified the school of the child's absence, but not the service. So the result is understandably and unaccounted for child at after school care pick up. So this can really stretch out the duration of the whole transport process. Good communication between the school and the service around attendance can help to alleviate this problem, or at least minimize the impacts. So it's important that attendance registers are kept up-to-date and checked at beginning and end of each transport run. Rules for documenting attendance should be used at multiple times during the transport process, certainly at the point of collection or departure, when embarking and disembarking the vehicle, and when entering the service premises or other location. So some services also include a photo of each child along with their name to enhance the accountability of educators who are documenting attendance. This is a particularly good strategy when transporting larger groups of children, and particularly for ASH where children are all wearing the same school uniform and can quite easily be mistaken for another child. All right, so further using documentation tools and registers, regular headcounts are vital to ensuring all children are accounted for during the transport process. Head counts should be conducted and checked against the attendance register at multiple points during the transport process, but also by multiple staff. One educator might mark the attendance register while another does the head count, and then the two are checked against each other. This requires both educators to be actively engaged in attendance, checking processes. A head count check highlights very quickly if a child's unaccounted for and further investigation can occur immediately. Again, the processes here must be clearly defined as should the roles and responsibilities of each staff member involved. So where there's lack of clarity around who's responsible for head counts and role marking staff can become complacent and assume that someone else has completed the task. So clarity of roles and responsibilities is key. In the image on the slide there, you can see that the children at this out of school hours care service are aligned up there. They're having their names marked off once they're inside the service. The headcount check in this case was conducted as the children were exiting the vehicle, and again, as they entered the service gate. So you can see there's a well defined space where the attendance register's being completed as well. So it's important that the attendance register and headcount checks are done before children enter rooms or other shared play spaces. Okay, so transitioning from the collection location or premises to the vehicle and vice versa often requires engagement and communication with other stakeholders such as family, schools, or third party providers of activities. Establishing suitable meeting points to allow for collection and supervision is important, especially at school where there are often 100s of children coming and going at the beginning and end of the day. Equally important though, is establishing a procedure for where and how the service vehicle is parked or pick up and drop off. So ideally the vehicle will be parked close by to the gathering point and on the same side of the road as the school service or other venue. In the example in the slide, the gathering point for the children at this school was well defined. It was shaded and comfortable. And in this case, the children met the educator at the gathering point and they then routinely waited for some of the other foot and vehicle traffic to move on before walking out to the service vehicle. Having open channels of communication with other staff involved in the transport process at these busy times can also help to mitigate risk. So for example, using walkie talkies or mobile phone communication between the educator at the collection point, staff at the vehicle and at the service premises can assist with minimizing risk and providing safer transitions. So the service featured in this slide introduced walkie talkies for communication after they reviewed their transport procedures. And this strategy has really helped to make transitions not only safer, but also smoother. And those transitions, we want them to be times of minimal stress for the children involved as well. So the smoother the better. Alright. So moving on to authorizations. When transporting children as part of service provision, all authorizations must be current and in place. So tasking this to a specific staff member and requiring the process to be undertaken before transportation is vital. Regularly crosschecking the records held at the service and in the vehicle is also crucial to ensure that child family contacts and emergency contact details are current. This is particularly important if someone needs to be contacted where a child is unaccounted for. Similarly, the contact details of other stakeholders, such as schools should also be accessible. If a child is unaccounted for, when being collected from home or school, contact needs to be made with the school, family or emergency contact as soon as possible. This will also be the case if a child is being transported to their home and a responsible adult's not there to collect them from the vehicle. So these sorts of situations can not only cause inconvenience, but also be upsetting for educators and the other children involved in the transport run. Having up-to-date current contact information for all stakeholders in the vehicle helps to ensure appropriate action can be taken efficiently and effectively. And often when we do need to make those contacts, it's good if we can pass that responsibility back to someone at the service or at the scheme, if we're the person who's frontline managing the inconvenience and the stress that it's causing educators and children. Okay. So this one we know is really crucial. And unfortunately, sadly we know there have been instances where children have been left on service transport, and the consequences have been tragic. So clear procedures that outline the roles and responsibilities of individual educators at these times of heightened risk are crucial to children, safety and wellbeing. So again, we come back to those policies and procedures, but also the practices, the actions that we put into place. So the policies and procedures should outline clearly the specific checks that must be completed when, and by whom, and how these checks must be recorded. So after every transport run, a thorough check must be undertaken to ensure no child remains in or near the vehicle. The check should include a visual inspection of all areas of the vehicle. So all of the seats, including the driver's seat, under the seats, storage areas under and around the vehicle. The names of the children who attended the transport run can also be called out. And it's a good idea to make sure the vehicle engine's turned off so that there are no distractions that might interfere with hearing a child as well. A second educator should then conduct an additional vehicle check following the same procedure. And then both educators completing the vehicle inspections should also record written verification of the vehicle checks on the transport attendance record. As multiple staff members are involved in checking and clearing the vehicle. There again is room for complacency if assumptions are made that someone else has completed this task. So the clarity of roles and responsibilities is absolutely paramount when it comes to checking and clearing the vehicle. For family day educators, you'll be doing this independently, but obviously you'll be following those same methods of visual checking as well as listening out for children. And because you are usually dealing with lesser numbers of children, those attendance checks and head counts will really help you out in that space too. Okay, so talking about now our child restraints, booster seats, and seatbelt requirements. So to protect children from harm, when they're in transit, they should be appropriately restrained. So specifically transporting children in vehicles requires services to comply with child restraint legislation. So we have our New South Wales Road Rules. Child restraint rules vary depending on the type of vehicle being used. If the driver or any passenger is not restrained in accordance with the law, the driver can be penalized with demerit points and fines. So we do know that the use of dedicated child restraint systems prevents death and serious injury in a crash. Road safety authorities, including Kids and Traffic recommend the use of child restraints and booster seats for as long as the child still fits into the restraint. It's really important to match the size of the child to the restraint type that's going to offer them the best protection. So where vehicles can be fitted with child restraints and booster seats suitable for the ages of the children will be using them, risk of harm will be minimized. When transporting children in vehicles. It's really important to remember, we can't control what happens outside of the vehicle we can only control what happens inside the vehicle. So it's important we take steps to make sure children are restrained in the safest way possible. In the image on the slide there, you can see all the children being transported are restrained in forward facing child car seats. These have been professionally fitted into the vehicle by an authorized restraint fitter as well. And also in this case, educators were trained in how to check the restraints and how to adjust them to fit individual children. And each child used the same seat on the way there and on the way back to, so the seatbelts were then adjusted to suit that particular individual child. So it's really important to note that when transporting children in vehicles that say 12 or less people, it is the driver's responsibility to ensure they, and all their passengers are restrained according to the legislation. If services of transporting children in vehicles that are built to carry more than 12 people, this includes the driver, they should always aim to achieve the best safety outcomes for children by following child restraint recommendations. So we know this is an area that tends to cause quite a bit of confusion. So we do suggest services referred to the "Transporting Children's Safely Guidance" document in the safe transport toolkit. And of course you can also contact us at Kids and Traffic for advice on your specific circumstances. We can certainly help you work through the risk management around the use of age appropriate child restraints, booster seats, and seatbelts. Okay, so the subject of ratios came up when we were doing the Menti before. It was very much acknowledged the importance of supervision and obviously ratios will contribute to good supervision as well. So one of the most effective ways to minimize risk is to increase supervision, particularly when embarking and disembarking and moving children to and from the vehicle. So transition to and from the vehicle might also involve children walking through car parks on footpaths or crossing roads. So minimizing harm to children as pedestrians must also be considered as part of the broader transportation process. We'll always have pedestrian journeys as part of our transport. Parking the vehicle close to the premises, location, or school and on the same side of the road, again is a good risk mitigation strategy, but supervision is the best risk minimization strategy. Not only do increased adult child ratios allow for greater supervision, they also allow educators to have better quality interactions and conversations with children, which can really add value to the transportation process. Increased adult child ratios also promote greater supervision in the vehicle, including the educator's capacity for checking the children remain seated in the appropriate restraints throughout the journey. All right, so we come back to the importance of clear communication about the duties and responsibilities of each staff member involved in the transport process. And we know that this is really paramount to minimizing the risk of harm. The communication must be ongoing. It needs to happen before, during, and after the transport process. Transporting children as part of service provision may be viewed as business as usual for services who do this regularly. And as a result, unfortunately, processes and practices might not be revisited and reviewed as often as they should be. So it's really important that providers, leaders, educators, other staff, and any volunteers involved in transport regularly communicate about roles, responsibilities, and record keeping. And if there are any issues that everybody at any step feels comfortable to raise those issues, and there's a process in place for them to raise any issues. The image in the slide shows five educators from the off service there, having their daily pre transport run before after school care pick up. This meeting's really a good time to clarify attendance registers and to ensure that each educator understands their responsibilities. To check that each vehicle contains all the equipment and information required for the five bus runs that are just about to occur. Okay, so we know that under the education and care services national regulations, risk assessments must be carried out to identify and assess risk to children's safety, health, and wellbeing associated with transportation. Decisions need to be made about how best to manage these risks and plans put in place to ensure control measures are implemented. There are many factors that must be considered prior to transportation to ensure regulatory requirements are met. The most important consideration though, is to establish the severity of the potential consequence in order to determine risk mitigation strategies. So although the chances of the event occurring maybe deemed as low, consequences of transport related risks are often catastrophic. Providers, leaders, educators, and all other staff involved in transportation should regularly meet to review risk assessments. And all those involved should also be dynamically assessing risk whenever they are transporting children. As we know, risk may change often depending on external factors like changes in weather or road conditions, and also along with children's individual needs and behaviour. And that can change on a day-to-day, minute by minute basis. So that communication with families about children's individual needs their dispositions and moods is crucial as these can also change on a daily basis. So the "Transport Safety Risk Assessment "and Management Guide" in the safe transport toolkit provides risk assessment templates and best practice examples. And you can see an example of that up on the screen there. In the examples, each risk mitigation strategy recorded has a staff member or members allocated to its implementation. So that level of clarity is crucially important to ensure strategies are actually carried out. So again, it's translating that policy and procedure into practice and action, and really ensuring that roles and responsibilities are very clear. All right, transportation also gives us a wonderful opportunity to link back to ongoing road safety education. So engaging children and families in the services ongoing road safety education program is an effective way to keep transport safety high on everyone's agenda. Road safety education should be cross curriculum play based, child centred, and localized so that it's meaningful and relevant to children and families. For young children, obviously it's the adults in their lives who are responsible for their safety, but this doesn't mean though that we can't engage children in learning about all the things we do together to keep safe, like holding an adult's hand and keeping close, or being safely buckled up in a car seat or a booster seat. For older children, maybe our outside of school hours care children, road safety education will include their responsibility to ensure all of the safety practices that the service has in place are followed under the supervision of an adult. Keeping children safe is a unifying goal that educators and families will work on together. So instead of noting and highlighting families’ unsafe practices, we really try to focus on giving attention to all the safe behaviours that we observe too. So, as I mentioned before, there are loads of programming ideas and resources included in our Kids and Traffic Professional Development Workshops on our website. So please come along to a workshop to find out more. Transport for New South Wales fund our program to provide these to you free of charge. So, come along and make the most of this great service. Okay, so there's the documents in our safe transport toolkit. So it's the suite of documents that can be found on both the Kids and Traffic website, and also on the Department of Education's website in their Early Childhood Education Resource Library. Each of the documents does have a specific focus. So I'll just go through these briefly now. So the blue document, you can see they're on the left. "Transporting Children Safely" is a guide to help providers, leaders, and educators understand the legal requirements, not only of the Education and Care Services National Law Act and Regulations, but also of the New South Wales Road Rules and Road Transport Act along with best practice road safety guidelines when traveling with children. The pink document, "Transport Authorization Template and Samples" assist services to improve their understanding of the information required in transport authorizations. Then the purple document "Safe Travel and Transport" assist services to maximize the benefits of transportation, to children, families, the service, and community, and in particular to work efficiently and effectively with other stakeholders involved in the transport process, and to use transportation to support a whole of service road safety focus. The green documents "SAMPLE Safe Transport Policies and Procedures" and a checklist that services can use as best practice to model their own documents on. And then the last one, the orange document is a guide for "Transport Safety Risk Assessment and Management". So this document has the sample risk assessments that can, again, be used as a model for services to work from when documenting their own risk assessments. We're also really delighted to have added three safe transport practice example videos to our resource collection. And again, these can be found on both the Kids and Traffic and the Department of Education websites. The videos focus on centre based early education care excursions, family day care excursions, and regular transportation and out of school hours care daily transportation. And I would like to give a big shout out to the services who allowed us to document their processes and procedures in these videos. So Explore & Develop Macquarie Park, Bankstown Family Day Care, and Tilly’s Play & Development Centre in Rutherford. All right, there's our Kids and Traffic details. Please, if you do require support around policy, procedure, risk assessment, any advice on the requirements for child restraints, et cetera, or if you would like support for your broader road safety education program, please be in touch with us. We are very flexible in the way that we deliver professional development. We can do it after hours. We can do it in hours. We can do it online. We can do it face to face. So take a look at our website for more information about that, or just reach out and contact us directly. So, yes, thanks very much. I know we haven't necessarily been able to get to a lot of questions and answers at this point in a live manner, except for what's been in the Q&A there, but as the questions are often quite specific, yes, it's often good just to be in touch directly.

- Thank you very much, Louise. That was a fabulous presentation. Thank you. I hope you all found that as engaging and informative as I did. To finish off, I'd just like to highlight some of our resources that are available. So these resources are there to support you all with understanding and implementing the transport regulatory requirements. The Department has guidance on our website, which unpacks the transportation regulations and additional regulatory requirements and considerations. ACEQA also has a couple of information sheets on the safe transportation of children. And as Louise mentioned, the Department partnered with Kids and Traffic to develop resources to guide and assist New South Wales services in implementing best practice in the safe transportation of children. We'll share links to these in the chat. Please bookmark these pages and revisit them as needed. And finally, the Department's information and inquiries team are always available to support you with questions related to your service operation. So thank you very much for attending this road show session. I'd like to end by acknowledging again, the vital work that you all do on a daily basis to ensure children's health, safety, and wellbeing during the transport process. Thank you very.

- Thank you.

- Good morning, everyone. We're just allowing everyone to join us today. The numbers are climbing. We'll get started just after 10:00 AM. Good morning, everyone. The numbers are still climbing. We'll give everyone a few more minutes to join in and then we'll kick off our session for today. One more minute and we'll get started. We've got lots of people coming to us today to join this session. So we'll just allow everyone to get in and we'll commence very soon. Okay, let's get started. Good morning, everyone. My name is Laura Dawson, and I am the director of strategic communications for early childhood education and care. We're really pleased to have you joining us here today for our very first road show session, The Early Years Commitment. And I'll be introducing our speaker, Lisa Alonso Love, our deputy secretary of the department of education, very soon. But before I do, we're going to kick off with an acknowledgement of country from the children at Toukley Preschool.

- [Both] We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge our Aboriginal land. We place hands in the sky that covers our Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land. We promise.

- What a beautiful little video and I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which are coming to you from today, the Awabakal people, and I'd like to pay my sincere respects to elders past, present and emerging and any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people here present with us today. Thank you for joining us. We have quite a number of people here present with us today in the session. We will shortly be joined by Lisa Alonso Love, our deputy secretary, and she will kick off the session and take us through a number of slides and information about Early Years Commitment. I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about housekeeping so that you know how our Q&A function works today. We do have our Q&A open, so you are welcome to put your questions into that chat. Our formal chat function is disabled so that we can use the Q&A. And we will use this for our session a little bit later, so that you can ask any questions that you might be interested in. We will be using Menti during the session, and if you have a mobile phone on hand or you'd like to use another screen, you're most welcome to do so. That will enable us to hear from you, and so that you can participate in today's session. The session is recorded, and we'll be available on our website, following completion of the roadshows. And we'll ensure that those who have registered will receive the link after the session. We will also enable a survey following the session today so that we can hear from you about your experience, and we can continue to improve our roadshow offerings as we move through our session for September, but also into 2023. We do have automated closed captions on screen that have been enabled for accessibility. One other thing that I would like to add to our housekeeping information today is that you are likely aware that the late Queen Elizabeth II did pass away last week. This will mean that some of our sessions to be held next week will need to change. And we will send you information about this today, later today, so that you can find out when those sessions might be changed too. Those sessions that will shift, we will definitely record so that you are aware of when they will be held. But if you are unable to make it, you'll be able to watch them following our roadshows on our website. So I believe next slide is a short welcome from our minister for education and early learning, Sarah Mitchell.

- Hi, I'm Sarah Mitchell, the New South Wales minister for education and early learning. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to introduce the early years commitment to you all. As the minister responsible for early learning in New South Wales for over five years, and as a mother of two young children, myself, I've seen firsthand the benefit of a quality early childhood education. As you all know, the first five years of a child's life are vital for their health, development, learning, and wellbeing, for both their early years and throughout their lifetime. And quality early learning really does set the foundation for lifelong success for our children. That's why I announced earlier this year that the New South Wales government has an early years commitment. This is a 10-year, $15.9 billion investment, a once in generation opportunity to change the future for every child and family in New South Wales, no matter where they live or what their circumstances are. This commitment aims to reduce barriers to quality, affordable, and accessible early learning. Through our affordable preschool programs, Brighter Beginnings, universal pre-kindergarten, affordable and accessible childcare through our fund, and a workforce package, we really are building the sector for the future. I'm also very aware of the important role that early childhood educators play in the lives of our littlest learners and the impact quality early childhood education has on a child's life for decades to come. That's why our partnership with you, our early childhood teachers, our educators, and our services is so important and at the heart of this commitment. And we're looking forward to supporting and working with you, our vital early childhood education sector, both now and into the future as we realize this shared vision. So thank you for being a part of this journey. Together, we can build a brighter future for New South Wales children and families.

- Now with no further ado, it is my great pleasure to welcome Lisa Alonso Love, our deputy secretary who is leading our Early Childhood Outcomes division, who will take us through the presentation today. Thank you, Lisa. Lisa, we've got you on mute, I'm sorry.

- Gosh, that's a rookie error, isn't it? You would think after all this time, I would've got that right. However, we're all in a learning space here. What I was saying is it's really lovely to be spending some time with you this morning and to those who are watching the recording later on, I'd also like to acknowledge that I am on Gumbaynggirr land here this morning and acknowledge elders past, present, and emerging. And also some little people who I visited this morning before this session and who reminded me why we're all here, actually, why we're all here, because we do it for them. Today, we really want to understand who we've got on the session, where you come from, what's happening. And so we are going to kick off, as Laura said, we're going to use Menti. So hopefully there will be something that pops up on the screen just now where you can use your phone and scan that QR code. And it will take you to a page, there's a code there. Really keen to really find out who we've got on the session. It'll talk to you about, you know, where are you from? What suburb or what town, what big regional centre are you from? What kind of service are you from? Just so that we can really make sure that we understand who we're talking with this morning. So shortly, you'll be able to see some of those answers, the amazing technology that we have. So you can see we've got over 650 people on this morning. Great to see people from Coffs Harbour, where I am today. People from Ryde, from Murwillumbah, from Wee Waa. We've really got good spread there. People from Wollongong and Turramurra, people from Palm Beach and Concord, really lovely to have a range of people from across the state. And also just to really express my appreciation for the time that you're taking out of the day. I know this is super exciting and we're really excited to be able to tell you about this Early Years Commitment and to talk you through today, you know, across the whole commitment. And then as Laura said, other sessions over the next couple of weeks where you can dig a bit deeper into some of the things. Coolamon, Cooks Hill, Bathurst, I spent a bit of time in Bathurst. In fact, I've spent a bit of time in a few of these places. Spring Farm, North Strathfield, it's great to get such a really great spread of people here. And hopefully it's also asked you a little bit about your role so that we will be able to make sure that as we go through the Q&A later, and as we think about what kind of things you are going to want to know about and what the questions are, we can make sure that we really address them as the work goes on. Okay, I think we might now move on, thanks. Oh, hang on, there we go, some different types of centres. Great that we have a range of people, our family daycare sector, our long daycare sector, our community preschools, and knowing that all of you are providing a really wide range of services. Great to see some mobile daycare there as well. Knowing all of you are taking time out, probably from running your services or spending time with our little learners today. Director seems to be a... We've got lots of directors on, this will be a little bit about usually the size of the words, you know, kind of correlates with the numbers of people in that role. So great to see some coordinators, some valued administration people and practice leaders. Some teachers, fantastic to have a range of you here today. All right, we might get stuck into just taking you through the important reforms. And as you heard from the minister, like really, truly unprecedented and ground-breaking reforms that we have in the early years commitment. What I would say is kids, children are at the centre of all of this and the way that we want to do the work needs to continually ask ourselves the question, is this working for children and families? But it's not just about children and families because what works for them means we need the support of the whole sector. We need our educators, we need our directors. We need the organizations who help run these services. It's a really broad group, but why are we doing it? And I've got to say, I'm preaching to the converted on this, I know, but it's really important that we all kind of, you know, just get on the same ground about why. So we know that despite the enormous amount of work that you're all doing and that we're doing, that still two in five children in New South Wales are not developmentally on track when they start school. We know that when kids participate in early child... quality early childhood education services, that they do they do better in their various sort of developmental domains and that when they get to school, they're ready to learn. I heard someone say last week, early childhood education ignites a passion for learning. I just think that's really stuck with me and we want to make sure that all kids have those developmental outcomes. And so we know that investing in quality services in our workforce, in the affordability and accessibility for our early childhood education from zero to five will make a difference. And that's the thing that we're passionate about and we know you're passionate about. We really have a commitment to working with you. We've had some really interesting feedback actually, as we kick off these reforms, that people are really keen to have answers about what we're doing. And so are we, and so is the government, and we all want to do that together. Sometimes I've noticed that, you know, in previous things that I've worked on, either we get an announcement about some funding for something, and all of the answers and we go out and just implement something. Or perhaps we get asked lots of questions and we come out and design things with you, but we then have to go away and get the funding. What we really want to do in this is make sure that we've got the right things being implemented in a way that all of you can work through. What's important is that we do this with you. And you can see here, we have a budget commitment. The government has committed this money and it's a really significant commitment that we want to make sure we get all of that to where it needs to be, and to what's going to make the difference. The only way to do that is to design it with you, with families, with communities, and with children. So it's really important to us that we do that with you. Now, that means we don't have all the answers about all of the things yet, because we need to come out and do that with you. Sometimes that's hard because you want to just know and be able to get on with it. And we're going to get things sorted and models agreed, and all of those sorts of things, guidelines out, as soon as we can. But we're not going to do it unless we've talked with people first and checked whether it's the right thing. And of course, once we do get it out there, we're going to get feedback from you. And we really hope that you give us that feedback, so we know whether things are working or not, and we can change them as we go. This isn't a set and forget kind of reform. This is working together and getting better as we go. So I think you'll see us trial things, you'll see evaluations, and you'll see that continued investment which is really important for our kids. So we've got a bit of a roadmap here and excuse me while I take a drink. We've got a roadmap here that talks about a range of the things that we're doing. So you can see, and you will have heard the announcements. Our investment in our workforce is really critical. We know, we know that that's challenging for people now, and it's tricky and we know we've got a lot of work to do with you for supporting our workforce, expanding our workforce and those sorts of things. The Brighter Beginnings piece, our affordable preschool, you will see some of that kicking off really soon, and we'll be working with you on that. The fund, we'll get into that a little bit later with an opportunity for you to let us know what you think about that and how we can work with that. And of course one of those really big announcements, is that universal year of pre-kindergarten, which is really important that we designed that with you, because that is that long term, very big vision. And so you'll hear a bit about trialling, starting some sort of small trials next year, and how we build on that to make sure that we've got the model right on that as well. And the critical thing is, as I said, that we work with you and a lot of that will kick off next year. So the things that we have over the 10 years, investing in our workforce, really comprehensive investments now but more to come, Brighter Beginnings. So a range of things across government that work with families who really need our help early on and making sure we're getting in there. Our affordable preschool to help really with fee relief for our kids and families as they are in preschool. Universal Pre-Kindergarten, which we've talked a little bit about and we'll get into more. And of course the affordable and accessible Childcare Participation Fund. This is all investing in our sector, investing in our workforce, it's really important. So we might hop onto what I know is dear to all of your hearts, the investment in our workforce. You will have seen some announcements recently around fee-free vocational education and training for the Certificate III and the Diploma qualifications, so really helping to get people to access that. We want to talk with you about how we can make that system work better for our workforce. We know that as always, there are improvements we can make, and we want to engage with that. We've had a great uptake of the scholarships for our ACECQA-approved teaching qualifications, really critical actually that we keep building on that. I know we had over 430 people take that scholarship opportunity up earlier this year. And those rounds are, I think, still open and close soon for some new ones as well. What we will be doing is getting some more structured engagement with key people across the sector in October and November, to understand as well, how we can drive retention. Now, this isn't about saying we don't think that pay and conditions is important, we know that is. We're really working to advocate with the Commonwealth and to talk about how that helps, but we also want to think about what else helps people stay, stay in the workforce, keep going, encourage other people. So we'll be doing some really close engagement to understand what else we can do that will really help to support our workforce. And of course from 2023, as you would know, there's changes to our Start Strong funding through a range of programs. And what we're wanting to build in is a bit more flexibility about the funding that you get through that. So that that can also be used to really support employers and organizations to support their workforce, their pay and conditions, and other ways to really support their workforce. So some more flexibility around that that you can really look forward to. Our Brighter Beginnings piece, as I said, is really about that right child developmental support. And it's that broader view, because we know that we can't just make a difference in our early childhood education settings. It takes a whole community. It takes lots of different government services. It takes some coordination. And so you can see that there's a really big investment now in making sure that that works and that that helps across. So we've got a range of things and expansion and continued support for our Aboriginal Child and Family Centres. We've got parenting support through a range of programs and pregnancy family conferencing. And we've also got really importantly developmental checks that we are working in partnership with our department of health colleagues on, where health professionals will be out across the state, making sure that every four-year-old has a developmental check. Now, that's really important for us that we can get in and understand what our learners need and what that's going to look like. Now, there'll be some trials on what works because we need to take local context into account on that as well. So you can look forward to hearing more about that in a session a bit later, and also in some trials where we'll be trialling for 15 areas in 2023, and then increasing to some more as we go. So hopefully many of you'll be able to be involved in that. Okay, of course I've jumped ahead in my slides as I often do. And so the other things that I haven't kind of mentioned in there are the Digital Baby Book, really important that we give people the right access and a way to continually kind of have access and engage in their child's development and understand some of those things. So we are working with our partners in our community customer service and with health on that. I think it's really important that we work together on those and the evaluation, like I talked about before, understanding how they're working, what's going to happen, getting your feedback about how it's working for you and for families will be important on all of those. You can see that there's a first 2000 days summit on the 31st of October and the 1st of November. And I would really encourage you to join in with that. And there's also a newsletter that you can join, the Brighter Beginnings Newsletter. So I think there will be a link perhaps in the chat that you can subscribe to that as well. Affordable Preschool and Start Strong. As many of you know, there's a bunch of different kind of funding opportunities through Start Strong. And what we've been able to do is to really build on the funding that we've given around preschool for the last few years and make that an ongoing and reliable source of fee relief for families, so that we can get participation from all kids. We really hope that that brings families in, that it allows them to kind of participate more, and it really eases that burden. And we'll be working with all of our centres across the state to be able to do that. So that works with $4,000 for kids for fee relief for families, for preschoolers in that year before school, the four year, and five-year-olds, as well as $2,000 for those in long daycare centres. And that's taking into account that we have different Commonwealth funding in our system as well, so we've tried to sort of work around that. But really excitingly as well, we've got a couple of years of funding to trial fee relief or support to really encourage three-year-olds into long daycare preschool as well. So we'll be getting fund new guidelines out to be released in October. There's been a lot of consultation with you around that, to hear how that can work for people. And you'll get funding notification letters sent prior to the end of term four, so that you can work with your families on that. We know that you've got a plan and we know that that's out there. So we are working really hard to get that to you as quickly as possible. The other thing that will happen if you're in a department of education preschool, is it will allow for the equivalent of five days of free preschool for children attending those settings. So what we're trying to do is make sure that it gets to kids no matter which setting they're receiving they're preschool program in. What I would say is, sorry, just very quickly, please attend the roadshow on that as well, because that you'll be able to get more information around how the affordable preschool will work and some more detailed Q&A's on that as well. So Universal Pre-Kindergarten, a year of no cost, quality early learning for every child introduced by 2030. We've got a team working hard to work out what are all the different ways that this could work? What are the ways that people could engage in this? We've committed that it is across a range of settings. It will probably include more public provision or provision some kind on public school sites. And that will be dependent on the needs of the community and what is needed in particular places. We know that when you introduce something like this, one size does not fit all, and that's why we really need to engage strongly with communities, with yourselves, and across the sector to make sure that we think about all of the consequences of the decisions that we make, that we understand how it will work, that we understand the funding, the participation, the guidelines, and how we kind of build up to that over time. What we do know, the central things we want to keep there is that it is high-quality, play-based learning up to five days a week. It is not compulsory, but we really hope that many, many families and children take this opportunity up. It's focused on those physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and language development domains. So it's about giving kids the best chance to develop in that year. And making it possible for families to have their children in that year, no matter where they are, no matter where they are in the stage, no matter what their needs. And so we've got to get that model right and work with you on that. It's so exciting. We really just can't wait to be able to roll this out when you think about the benefits that this will have for kids who in fact may not even be born yet, but this is why we do this work, so that we can build a system that does amazing things. I think it's important to really also see how we can make that work across those settings. So we'd really welcome, there'll be an opportunity shortly in the coming weeks to be able to have your say around that and give us some ideas about what you'd like to hear about, what you think we need to think about. So when those things come out and you see those, please grab those opportunities to help us think about the questions we need to ask and to work with you on the types of, I guess, considerations we need to make as we go forward. That way, we can get answers back out to you and really build those models together. Another really exciting thing, which is, is harder to kind of explain in some ways, but super exciting that we've been able to set up, an Affordable and Accessible Childcare and Economic Participation Fund. And I'll just call it the fund because it's quite a mouthful. But really what this is about is that acknowledgement that for families and for children, we need places in early childhood education to be more affordable and more accessible for them. We want everyone to be able to have that opportunity. We want parents to be able to be in the workforce and to be able to look after their families and to participate in all of the things that help them have a full and exciting and amazing life. But we want their children to be well educated, well looked after, developing well alongside that. And so it's important with the fund that we think about both of those things. It's really critical that it's about both the families and the children and the sector. And we think about how we're going to make that happen. Now, the fund will allow us to give significant boost of funding into the sector. We are expecting that workforce will be a priority for that investment. It gets to a point where there's up to $650 million a year to invest across there. We will be setting up the governance and the ways that you can interact with the fund shortly. And you will I think be able to have... There will be a link, I think either in the chat or after this, where you can get on. There we go, there it is. The link to have your say on the fund. We want to hear from you about what you think the priorities and the guidelines, and those sorts of things are. So there's some questions in there, this is just our first engagement with the sector around what you think we should be thinking about with this fund. And so I'd really encourage you to get on there and have a think about what you can help us with. What do you want us to think about when we're investing in that. It's really significant and we want to make sure that that works. It doesn't matter whether you're in Sydney, whether you're in Wee Waa, whether you're in Broken Hill, we need to know what that means for your local community and what you think will make the difference. It's really critical that we do that, and that can be anything from your facilities, your infrastructure, your workforce, the way that families are able to get to early childhood education, how they can access it. Are there other ways you think they need to be able to access it in remote areas? We really want to hear about all of that. So we're looking forward to your engagement on that as well. Okay, as we said at the beginning, this is kind of a... It's a little bit of the whistle-stop tour of the reforms. It's really important that we get the information to you now, but that we then engage you as we go. And so I'm really keen to hear after that whistle-stop tour, if you can have a scan of that code again, and there'll be some questions that you're asked again. We're really keen to understand, what are you most excited about? Like what are the things in there that you think, "Wow, this is an amazing opportunity. I really want to be involved. I think this is great for our community." What are some of the things that you could you think could be done to improve accessibility and how do you want to be informed? How do you want to keep working with us on this? So this is great. Like I love, you know, the scholarships are super exciting, and the fact that we've had so many people want to use them. We need to support them to do that. Great, we've got someone from Ontario, that's fantastic. You want to get in touch with us, it is super exciting that we are on board with that value of that year, that extra year of early learning. And we’re hoping to learn from Ontario and understand how it's going to work in our context. I think as well, yes, that developmental checks for kids in preschool settings, really understanding what our kids need, knowing who they are and what supports they need is so critical for their development and really important that we work together with our health colleagues to do that. Increased funding, absolutely. You know, it is such a great expression of commitment of society and government that we have this... You know that we have this funding and it's lovely that we are on this exciting journey to be able to work out how to best invest that fee-free preschool, you know, that year before school, the early learning to be able to say that that is going to be at no cost is really fabulous. And I do think that ongoing commitment is really important. Like sometimes it's not just one bit of this, it's the whole thing. I've got to say, there are mornings where I wake up and I think, "Oh, there's that bit or there's that bit." But just so often, I think actually having the opportunity to have all of these reforms together at the same time is just so amazing for our sector because often we do bits and pieces, but super exciting that we've got all of it. Great to have your feedback on that. So some of the things that you think can be done to improve accessibility in your area, really happy to hear any of your ideas. It's a trickier question than what you are excited about for sure, and yes, we know staffing and workforce are really, really critical. And that's why we want to come out and really have some targeted kind of work with you on top of what we've learned through things that the Commonwealth have done, and others have done to understand that investment in our workforce. More preschool places and staffing availability, really important. The local government thing I think is great to really work with our local government colleagues and understand the local context and what's needed. Yes, centre renovations and improvements so that we can build on the infrastructure that we have and make it good quality for kids and for educators. Yes, we know that there's some double ups across places, and so we're working on how we might be able to understand that a bit better and make sure that everyone has access where they can. Totally preschool places, we need to get more of them, more staff. More connection with the local school is a really good one as well. That transition to school is important, and we need that to be working together. Like we need to have that coming from both sides so that kids and families are really well supported as they move on. Yes, definitely need more staff, good capital letters there. I think some comments there around how we use our funding and what it looks like, and I think that's a really good call out. You know, how are we going to make that work? And how do we make sure that our guidelines support you to do the work and support you to offer affordable, accessible quality places. We will continue and make that commitment to continue working with you to get that right. Yes, preschools in fast developing areas, really important as well. So really keen to understand how you would like to be informed. We're going to go to some Q&A's after this, so that will help as well, but really good to understand how you want to hear about it. Emails, webinars, things like that, great to get feedback after these set of roadshows to understand what helped and what else you want to know. Face-to-face training, we really want to have people out on the ground in our teams who connect with you. We know we've got a fabulous regulatory team, but big reforms, we need to have teams working with you on how we can do this on the ground. And over the next sort of 12 to 18 months we'll be setting those teams up so that you've got local kind of reform and contracting and commissioning people to work with. Lots of emails, we'll certainly make sure we get lots of emails. Facebook live is an interesting one. I notice lots of people do engage on our social media and that's fantastic. So we'll look forward to making sure that we get all of these things out there and that we just keep you informed and keep you engaged as we go. So I wonder, we might step into some Q&As now, I think we've got some on there. We had some key things. Just before we do that, we'll just run you through what the next steps are. As I've said, there's a lot of work and a lot of consultation and designing with you. You can see in that "Now" column, that that is where we are right now, and we want to be able to move on some of these things. So get some of our workforce investments out, really keep those scholarships running, understand what we can do better for retention. By the end of this year as well as we've talked about the guidelines for Start Strong, for the funding that includes the preschool reform funding as well as the affordable preschool funding, so new guidelines out for you on there. The fund is really important to know. We're working with IPART to understand how they're going to help us understand pricing and the costs and those sorts of things in the sector to help us inform the fund governance. And then our Universal Pre-Kindergarten, consultation with our families across the state, community visits, structured consultations with many of you and development of some pilot plans. So that by the end of this year, you can really clearly see how we're working on developing those models. And you can see early next year, a range of things from work on the Digital Baby Book, developmental checks, those 15 sites, and growing to 30 sites for pilots. The fee relief really kicking off for families in January and preliminary trials on our universal pre-K. So some fantastic things, looking forward to mid-2023, when applications for the fund will open for that first-round of 2023/24 funding. So lots to come. This will start to get a much busier slide as we get the work happening and get our teams up and running. Okay, so-

- [Laura] Thank you, Lisa. I think I'm joining you now to throw you some top questions, but before we get to that, though, I would just like to mention for everyone's awareness, our team, obviously working in the background and answering some of the questions here. We'll get through as many as we can, those that we can't get through, we will use that to inform our communications. So please don't feel disheartened if we don't get to yours today, we'll make sure that we do connect with the sector over the next few months as well. So, Lisa, the first question I'm going to ask of you is from Arian, who has asked a few questions in the chat about the need to support educators with pay and conditions to improve the experience and our workforce investments. So is there a little bit that you can talk about on that investment and how we might be supporting services?

- Yes, absolutely. Look, it's a fantastic question. And we know, you know, it's really important to many of you, it's sort of a bit complicated as well. Like we need to work with our Commonwealth colleagues on what they can do to support pay and conditions and where they intend to go. Because a lot of the levers, a lot of the regulation, a lot of the settings are at a Commonwealth level for our New South Wales sector. So we will do that, but it is not the only thing we will do. We are hoping that the new guidelines for our Start Strong funding will give you some more flexibility to be able to support workforce where that's an important thing to kind of have the quality at the heart of what you're delivering. As I said, the fund may be able to be used for some investment as well, where we can see that's going to make a really big difference. But we've got quite a bit of work to do on this, we know that we want more people to come in. We want people to stay. We know that pay and conditions are part of that story. And so the conversations we'll be having are, how can we help advocate for that? But at the same time, what are the other things we can do on that condition side? How can we make it easier to stay more? You know, people feel under less pressure. What does that look like? What are the things in your everyday life as an educator that you would want to change that we might be able to help do that to make it a place that you want to be and want to stay? We know you all want to be there, and we know lots of people want to come back, but we need to make that possible for you. So I think we've got a lot more work to do on that, but we know it's really critical.

- [Laura] Thanks, Lisa. And quite a practical question and still on the workforce front. This one is, "Can existing educators be eligible for scholarship funding?" So this guest has a person who's working in the service who has a cert III and would like to study the diploma. So is she eligible for this scholarship funding?

- I believe so. I might just check with any of my colleagues online whether they've got some more detail around that. But I understand that there is funding or fee relief available to go for the diploma. But I wonder if any of our executive directors online wanted to jump in with that question as well. That's if they've been given their permissions to jump in, but we might need to come back with some detailed answers around that one. I'd be really happy to make sure that we've got that answer for you, yes, really shortly.

- [Laura] Thanks, Lisa. This person is asking about enrolling children. So they enrol 40 school children eligible each week in a single unit preschool with 20 places per day. So if they offer five days, then some children might potentially miss out on places. So do you have any information about preschool places and how the Early Years Commitment might support existing services?

- Mm, great question. So what we don't want is to end up in a situation where offering the five days, I think you might be referring to the universal pre-K year, where offering that means that other kids miss out, that is definitely not where we want to end up. So what we need to understand is what would make that possible. That would be the conversation we'd be wanting to have with you and your community. If we look across the community, what are the things you need. Is its space? Is it workforce? What works across that community you're in if we were to say every child there was able to access it for five days a week, what are the things we'd need to do? And that's the investment that government wants to make and that we want to make. So that will be different in different places. For some people, there's just a lack of physical space to be able to do it. For some people, it's the workforce and we know we need to build that. For other people, it might be in fact that there's a range of centres and there're all at capacity and they think they need more centres in the town. So it will be a range of that. And then thinking about, are there any school sites where we might want to offer that provision? And might it be that we have services running that on a school site. Other people who are already experienced in this and want to step into that but run it on a school site. Really lots of models for us to look at so that we make sure that no kids are missing out when we get there. But totally understand this is a big... Like this is a big job and that we need to work with you to understand all of those kinds of barriers that you think might come up for us.

- Now, Lisa, this is, I guess, a design question about how we're going to implement the Early Years Commitment. And one of our guests today has asked whether we have considered seconding directors or nominated supervisors to work within a department like we did with the Preschool Growth Program many years ago. So just about how I suppose we're going to use the knowledge of the sector to inform our thinking and our work to design and deliver.

- Fabulous question. In fact, we are right in the middle of a big recruitment campaign for people to come and work with us. And if there are people out there who are really keen, but wanted to say, "Actually, I'd like to do it as a secondment, or I'd like to just come for 12 months because I really want to keep my role." Please, please get in touch. Once we're through this initial recruitment process, we'll be also looking at other ways to engage people across the sector. We would love to have people with deep experience in our teams. Of course, we don't want to take everyone out and then have an issue for services as well, but super keen to have people involved and think about those secondment opportunities. Because there's nothing like being able to have people there in your team every day who really understand what that looks like. The other thing I'd just say is one of the things we want to do is build our local teams. And over the next sort of 12 to 18 months, we do intend to have teams of people in local areas who work with local services and then work with our teams, designing universal pre-K, designing the funding guidelines, designing the work around and running the work around brighter beginnings and all of those things. They will be our key people who can kind of be the link for us, and that's going to be a really critical part of our team. Now, we're doing that just a little bit later so that we can build a structure to support those people and make sure that's working but keep an eye out for those opportunities. But certainly for anyone who's interested, have a look at the recruitment up. We might get some links out to all of you for the things that are up now, the jobs that are available now, and there'll be more over the next month. So keep an eye out and express your interest, get in touch with the people who are the contacts and let them know that you're interested. Because we are really happy to think about all sorts of different ways of having people involved.

- Thank you, Lisa. And in the presentation, you mentioned that children and families are at the centre of the design of the Early Years Commitment. And Sarah has asked how this will be delivered to families. So I suppose it might be with specifics to the fund or UPK, but how will children and families be a part of this Early Years Commitment?

- Yes, great question. And one I'm really passionate about, and I think we have our own Sarah online as well who's leading our universal pre-K work who might be able to talk about some work that we're just kicking off around how to involve children and families. Now, Sarah, are you with us? Did you want to talk a little bit about that design work that we want to do directly with families?

- Sure, very happy to. Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everyone. So I think with that question, you're spot on, whatever we do has to be designed around the needs of families and children, that really needs to be guiding all the work we do thinking about that future service system. And so we believe that work will need to take place over the next couple of years, but really immediately, we are commissioning family research work and work with children to make sure that we have that as the foundational basis to guide the work ahead. So over the next couple of months, we'll be commissioning work with some specialist support to work with families, work with children, and also work with service providers to capture that understanding about what are the needs that children and families have, what are the things that they would like in that future service system that we have this amazing opportunity to design for them and with them and yourselves. And so that will be a foundational piece of work, but that won't just stop once we commission that piece of work. We were going to also think about how do we design that future system where those views and needs and experiences are continuously fed into and form that future service design. So there's a number of components that we could explore in the future around that. And we also want to be doing deep listening work with service providers like yourselves over the coming months. So I can see there's a lot of questions in the chat going, "Well, what does this mean for my service? What does this mean if I'm a long day care centre next to a school? What does this mean for community preschools?" The point, we want to hear from you, we won't be making decisions about universal pre-kindergarten without that consultation and deep listening with you. We have heard, I've heard whenever I've come to speak to people, "Oh, I'm worried, what's going on? Please don't make these decisions without us." And the commitment from the minister and us as a team is we won't be making those decisions without talking to you. There's a lot of the design work and the details around that future universal pre-kindergarten space that we just haven't... We haven't... We need to talk to you first, before we make those determinations and that decision. So as Lisa said, we're in a huge period of recruiting and growing our team to actually take forward these big future ambitions. And that's we are starting to get in place the ways to come and talk to you. But just I guess, a commitment, we're not going to be making decisions without talking to families, without talking to children and without talking to you as the sector as well around what that future design will be. As Lisa has said, often in government, we get given, "Here is a thing. Now, go and deliver that." We've actually got an amazing opportunity where treasury and minister and the government has said, "We believe in this commitment. We believe in improving education, availability and outcomes for kids, but you need to do the work to figure out what the best solution is." And so we're in that unusual place where often government determines this is the answer, we don't want to do that. It's very clear we don't have those answers. We need to work with you to figure out what they are. And so I can see in the chat, there's a number of concerns around different types of models. We actually don't know because we need to work with you to figure out what works best in your local area, what will work best for the kids and the families in your local area. And that differs depending on each area and each part of New South Wales that we go to. So I guess that's a commitment from us. We want to work with families, children, and yourselves to figure out what that future design really could be.

- Thank you, Sarah. And our next question, I'll keep it open to both Lisa and yourself. But Elizabeth has asked us, "Will the universal pre-kindergarten be funded under the Start Strong Long Day Care and Start Strong preschool funding delivery systems currently in place?"

- It's a great question. And in fact, that's part of what we have to answer. It may be that that's the most useful way of doing that. But I think what we know is the increased size of that funding, the different type of model, the models that might exist, like it might be multiple types, will mean that it needs to be... It's a much more complex kind of question. And it will need a way of us funding that is really reliable, that's ongoing, that's long term, that's about the number of children that you're providing placements to. That has much better understanding of what that looks like across the year. So there would be, you know, I think the one thing we can flag is that there would be a lot of changes to any kind of funding that we bring out, because you will need that to work in a different way if you're delivering those kinds of services. So look, it might be... Like it might be another program under Start Strong, but it might not be, and we need to work out exactly how that's going to work. We need to work out how much we think what cost looks like, what it looks like in different settings. How do we make that work? So a lot to do with you on that and to make sure that our funding systems are streamlined, that they don't take heaps of your time, that we get you information on time. We've got a lot of work that we need to do to make sure that you're supported to deliver on any of this.

- Thanks, Lisa. Now, Kelly and Joe, and a number of others have asked about what the ECT supports, including supplements for employees who demonstrate best practice. What will this look like and how will services demonstrate best practice?

- Yes, great questions. So one of the things that we want to understand is if the conditions look a bit different, like what are the things that really help people stay? So we need to understand, you know, what are the conditions that happen where people feel really well supported, where they stay in their workplace, where they're perhaps above award wages, those sorts of things that we will be working on about what do we think makes the difference. And then there may be some sort of supplements or funding that we can do that support services to be able to do that. Now, we've got a bit of work to do to sort of work out how that's going to operate. And then we would need to then work out once we do that, are they working? Are those funding methods working for you? So we'd be keen to hear from people as we go out and talk about retention in the sector and workforce, what do you think best practice looks like? And what can you see working in your sector so that we can essentially support that? Now, that's not the only thing that we'll be doing. So, you know, that continuation of scholarships, I'd really like to hear from people of the people that have left the sector, what would bring them back in? Like what are the things as employers that you could do if some of you are employers or perhaps directors, and you've got a really good sense of why people leave and come back, what are the things that you think we could support or that you would use funding for to support those people to come back? Because it's not just about people coming in. It's a lot about people coming in. It's about really treasuring the workforce we have now and understanding what will help people feel supported to stay, but also to bring people back in. It may even be people in other careers, sort of middle of the way through their careers that are really keen to make a change into this sector. So we need to go and talk to those people and say, what is it that's going to bring you back in so that we can make sure our investment is targeted at those things?

- Probably have time for maybe two more questions. And there's one here that's really practical that's received a lot of up votes. So, from anonymous, "Educators and even teachers in schools have been complaining about the increased paperwork as the main reason people leaving the sector, regardless of how much money we give them This would need no money to implement and make an incredible improvement to the sector. Is this being considered"

- Totally being considered. Of course, it's really important to understand what we mean by paperwork and administration. Some of that is about the kids and we don't want to take away from that. But if there are ways that we can help to streamline the way that you interact with us as the funding agency. So different to the regulator, but us as the funding agency, we will totally look at how we can do that. And we'd like to be able to do that over the next few years. That will cost us a bit of money, because some of that is about how do we streamline our data collection, our funding systems, and those sorts of things. If we think that there are other kind of administrative roles, then we can work with our partners in the regulation part of the department. We can work with the Commonwealth, and we can understand what's driving that. What are the things that are causing that administration? Because of course we hear from you and we're hearing again today that that's really important. So we're absolutely open to considering what that looks like and how we can help with that. And to ensure that we don't add to it, because that's going to be really critical as we go forward. We're going to need information from you. We're going to need to know about the kids. We're going to need to know where they are. You know, we're flagged with the agreement with the Commonwealth and the increased investment there that people want to know about attendance and those sorts of things. But what we don't want is for that to add a burden. So we've got to work out how to make that really streamlined and how to do that in a way that supports you. So very open to hearing some of those ideas, yes.

- Now our final question for today, Lisa, and I think this one is so important. So I'm going to throw it to you. Chloe is a guest who's joined us, who has experience working the Universal program in Ontario, where they implemented Junior Kindy. Now, Chloe has asked, "How and what, if anything, is being put in place to inform and advise families about the educational aspect of the early years? Obviously, there's a significant emphasis put on caring," but she feels, "I'm not necessarily educating them." So what might we be doing in that space to raise awareness for families when they're making decisions about their child?

- Yes, really great, super great point. I think it's going to be really important that we do that with our sector. So some of the people who are most passionate about the value of this education are our educators. And so I would love to be able to, you know, build information and campaigns and have our educators talk to families about this and love to support that. I think as we get closer to the rollout of our universal pre-K year, we will need to really make sure that parents have good information about it, whether that be through their local centres that they're already engaged with, whether that be through their health providers or perhaps through social media, through television. Like there are a range of ways that are available to us, but what we want to do is make sure that that's done in a way that families see the intense value of that. I've got to say, my daughter's 15 now. And I treasure the time that she's spent in early learning because that set her up, like that has set her up for life. And you can see the amazing stuff that's come out of that for her. I still remember those educators. I remember what she learned and how excited she was at the end of every day. And you want all families to be able to see that. So we've got to work through how to get that out there for people so that they understand it's equally about their ability to participate and their child's ability and access to early learning that would just set them up and it makes life joyful. I think that's the other thing. Like, you know, when you see your kids engaged in that kind of learning and having fun and coming home and expanding their horizons, life is really exciting. And so we want to get that to families, and we want to get the community to understand that that's really what we're driving for here.

- Thanks, Lisa. And so many people, so many more questions in the chat. Thank you all so much. Lots of feedback shared there. We will note at all. Don't worry, your question will not be forgotten, and our team will easily try and answer some more questions there and in our ongoing communication. I'll throw it to you Lisa, to close our session today.

- Thanks so much, Laura. I know that we won't have answered all of your questions today. There were a lot in the chat. I know that we won't have all the answers that you need right now that you're really keen to hear. But we do want to engage with you on that, because your questions help us understand what's happening for you. And your questions will help us build the right models and the right ways of delivering this investment. Please, you can see some contact details there. There's been a range of ways shared in the chat. There are some great road shows coming up. So hopefully many of you are already sort of enrolled in those as participants, but please go and check them out. And if there are particular things that have kind of piqued your interest today, get in and learn a bit more about them in those sessions. We really look forward to talking with you more. I hope that you have an excellent day and can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you.

- Hi everyone. My name's Kate Stevens. I'm a manager in the pre-kindergarten team in the department. It's lovely to have you all joining us here today. I can see about 500 people online at the moment, and we'll just give people a couple more minutes to log on. So bear with us and we'll be kicking off soon. Thanks. Hi, everybody. If you didn't catch it just before, my name's Kate Stevens, I'm a manager in the pre-kindergarten team in the department, and I'd like to start by welcoming you to the Universal Pre-kindergarten, The Road Ahead session of the early childhood education road shows. We're absolutely delighted that you could join us today for this session and really excited to hear from you throughout this interactive session. I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land that we meet on. I acknowledge that I'm on Dharawal country here in Sydney, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging and consider Aboriginal children and families in all of the work that we are doing. And also would like to pay my respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people joining us today. We have a video we'd like to share now with some children acknowledging country. Thank you.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge Aboriginal land. We place hands in the sky that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land. We promise.

- Next up, I'll just run through a few housekeeping items. So I wanted to let you know that the microphone video and chat functions will be disabled during today's presentation, but we will be using Menti during the session. We're really keen to hear your feedback. So please do engage in those Mentis. You'll need a mobile phone to participate, and also the Q&A chat function will be on, sorry, the Q&A function will be on throughout the session. So please feel free to put your questions in and we'll make sure we have some time for questions at the end. We also wanted to let you know that this session will be recorded and available on our website following completion of the road shows for anybody unable to attend, or if you would like to share it with others. And finally automated close captions have been enabled during this session for accessibility. Thank you again for coming. We're really thrilled to have you. And I would now like to introduce Sarah Hurcombe, who's the executive lead of Universal Pre-kindergarten in the department. And Sarah will provide you with today's session on pre-kindergarten. Thanks, Sarah.

- Thanks, Kate. And hi, everyone. I also would like to acknowledge today; I'm joining you from Aboriginal land. I'm joining you from the Bidjigal land of the Eora Nation, down in South Sydney. And I pay more respects to any past, present, emerging leaders and any Aboriginal colleagues or Torres Strait Islander colleagues joining us in the session today. As we're doing this work, I had to explore and understand and then deliver, what is a universal pre-kindergarten year of education and learning. We're being very mindful that we need to be ensuring that the needs and the experiences and the desires of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander communities and colleagues and service providers are at the heart of that future design and vision. And what I'd like to kick us off with here really is emphasizing and noting the minister's message. When we're talking about universal pre-kindergarten, there is a lot we don't yet know. We need to work with you as a sector and with families and children, to make sure that we are designing a future service system that's fit for purpose. But what we do know is the vision is big. It is a once in a generation opportunity, and we have that commitment from treasury and from across government to make this investment in this space. We know that's true, and that is definitely there. And it's a very unique position to be in. Often, we have to fully develop something before we get treasury even interested to make an investment in some things. But what we've got in this opportunity is a real commitment to invest a significant amount of money into that year before school, that play-based education and learning for every child across the state. And having worked in and around government for many years, that is quite an exciting and nervous and nerve-wracking position to be in, in some ways, because that vision is there and we know that we owe it, and it's a great response, big responsibility to the future of New South Wales and kids and families coming after us. So what I'd love to get through, and I'm going to talk to you a little bit around what we know about universal pre-kindergarten at this very early stage. I'm also going to talk about how we need to work with you together as we go ahead. But I'll also, I'd really like to hear from you already in this initial session, around what are the things we need to think about as we go ahead together with you. So if we move on, I'd first love to really open it by asking you, what have you heard about universal pre-kindergarten? So I know as we've been starting to talk to stakeholders, to service providers, to families and to schools, there are a lot of different opinions and views out there about what is this universal pre-kindergarten piece. So before we go into the detail, I'd love to open the floor to you. If we move to the next slide, there's a Menti meter code, please scan that, or please pop in, go to that website, menti.com, and use that code there on the page. And we'd love to hear from you, what have you heard about New South Wales vision for universal pre-kindergarten? And that will make sure that as I talk ahead, I can make sure I answer some of those questions or some of those myths. And whilst you're doing that, we'll just do a quick check in to see where everyone's coming from. And we can see quite a broad group of you Tweed Heads, that's near where I grew up, in Wollongbar, which is nice to see. we've got Oberon, Wahroonga, Strathfield. So quite a few based in Sydney, but we've also got quite a few of the regions represented here, Tamworth, Central Coast, which is excellent. It's great to see a big spread from across the country chipping in, Yamba, which is wonderful. Taree, more north coast people, which is excellent to see, Blacktown. And I guess today is a real opportunity to start to share some of the more details we have around UPK, but also to start to hear about that difference, you know, how does it work for you in your local area? And what do we need to think about going ahead before introducing this extra big reform in this space? Right. I hope you've all had the chance. There's 2484, there's Wollongbar, which is great to see. Okay. So this is, we are also just keen to make sure that we know who we're talking to here today. And you can see there's a great diversity mix. We've got preschool, family day care, long day care, other services, and even our mobile day care services, which is great to see that you're all jumping in here today. Wonderful. And we also were curious to know, what is your role? So what is it that you do? So what we've got, we've got some directors, teachers, managers, coordinators, a real nice... We've got some policy makers, service leaders, teachers, educators, which is wonderful, a real broad mix of you here today, which is wonderful. As we take forward this work, we really want to hear from you and all of you in those different roles. Okay. So what have you heard about New South Wales vision? Not much. Okay, that's a start. Excellent. Let's change that then today. So not enough, not much, no details yet. Wonderful. Okay. Let's go down. Anything else? Not a great year before school, five days a week, it will be free. You've heard it on the news. Wonderful. So we've got some of that. So, wow. There's a lot... So that's great. We've got an opportunity to really share some good information and detail with you. But what we have heard, and I've just seen that pop up, up to five days a week, that year before school and a lot of media and press about it, and it will be free. So great. That's awesome. Let's go forward. We have heard some myths out there. And so I do want to kind of make sure that I'm giving you the information, so you know what it's not as well. All right. Moving ahead, the premise we're starting for universal pre-kindergarten is children need to be at the centre of this work. So the rationale, and the reason why government is making this significant investment, and it's a bigger investment than the state government has ever made in the past, is that two out of five children in New South Wales are not developmentally on track when they start school. But we know kids who do participate in quality ECE are more likely to succeed at school and have improved lifelong outcomes. So the argument has been made, I guess, in treasury and with our colleagues across the government, that we must invest in quality services, and that that workforce to deliver those quality services are essential. And so we want to, as we move forward in this work together, we want to make sure that we are starting with those voice and needs and experiences of children at the heart of what we do. And that's why we need some work to do. We don't yet know what that needs to look like. And it may differ in different areas across the state as we go ahead. So moving forward, what you may have heard in the news recently, if we move forward to the next slide, there was a lot... What you've probably heard in the news is a lot of different things. So you may have heard once in a generation investment and across a number of things. And you can see here, there's a package, a 10-year plan, an investment that has been agreed by this government and workforce, as you can see, is fundamentally important and crucial. And we have named that. We have a series of investments we'll be making in that space. There'll be an upcoming roadshow to talk more about what we'll be doing in the workforce space. And we know that will be incredibly important, and we'll underpin that universal year of pre-kindergarten. We've also making a big commitment around brighter beginnings, and that's thinking, how do you make sure that when a child starts their educational journey and just care that any developmental, additional development tool needs, or support is picked up. So we've got an initial focus in that space around developmental health checks. And that's a real opportunity for the department of education to work much, much closer with the department of health. In government, we can be pretty bad at times, working in silos. And so this is a really important opportunity to make sure that families and children don't have to wrap around the support services, but we instead wrap around them and work much closer with them. And with providers of early childcare education and care as well. The affordable preschool fund has a very long name, but sorry, the affordable preschool piece of work, sorry, the fund is here down the end, is about ensuring that children have access to affordable preschool over the next couple of years. The universal pre-kindergarten piece is that longer term vision. And may over time, some of the work that's being done under affordable preschool will be undertaken under the mantle of the universal pre-kindergarten space. But there's a series of packages of support that we are putting out to the sector in the next six months to help providers and families make sure that they can access that quality affordable preschool education in a setting that works for them. And again, I believe there's a road show and a section focused on that item later in the week or next week. Then when it comes to universal pre-kindergarten, you can see that there are a number of different elements in this space. So to give you a little bit of information around what it is, we've often heard myths, people saying it's an extra year of school. We want to make it really clear that it isn't. It is about that quality play-based learning and education that you'll know and love, and you'll be delivering in many of the places that you currently work in. It is about up to five days per week, and it is about free for families. And it is focused on that year before school. Which tends to be the age four to five, before children go to school. It's also about exploring extended hours possibly, of care and education available. There is that we need to do that work to understand what families want and need. And whether that how we can deliver that in the current service system is one of the things that we need to work with you together on. It's very clear that it's not about compulsory education. It's not going to be mandated for children or for service providers. It will, however, have an increased focus on potentially school site delivery, but not exclusively. We recognize there's a range of provision outside of the school gate that is really valuable to families and to communities. And we don't want to lose those. But we also recognize that there is an opportunity for us as a provider in this space and for the department that has access to those assets to think, "Well, how can we make sure that the provision of preschool and school sites and on school is actually available to more children where it suits their needs?" The other element around new universal pre-kindergarten, I really want to reiterate, is then this early stage. We need to do a lot of listening and engagement with you. What we've heard already, very clearly, is local service systems are quite different, depending on where you go. There are a range of different models in place already in the service system. Families like choice, and they want a range of options that they can choose from where possible. And so we need to do that listening work and that co-design with you. We're really clear, we've got this big ambition that by 2030, which is at least in eight years away, we are seeking to have it available to every child for up to five days a week, but there's a huge amount of work we need to do before we get to that point. And we really want to work with you ahead on what that should look like. Moving forward, we also want to make sure, and it's a commitment, that we have to think about different models of universal pre-kindergarten, play-based learning for children. We need to make sure it works for every child. And some of this we'd love to hear from you. We really want to understand where are you doing some really impactful work? Is it community-led Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned service provision, that we could be considering to help scale and grow across the state where that really works? Are there other models out there that you're already doing around children with disability or additional needs? Children with cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds. And what do we need... Are there lessons we can learn from rural and remote delivery in this space, that we might want to think about scaling and growing across the state? We're really keen to understand from you what is working and how can we help grow that, to make sure that more children have access to that? So you can see here, there are some key features, which I have mentioned. It's around that quality preschool program delivery, and about strong partnerships between the providers of pre-kindergarten care and the school itself. So that's the kind of key detail that we know at this point. Before we move on to sharing how we'd like to work with you and to get your feedback on that, we have a couple of other questions. So based on what I've just shared, we've got some questions on Menti, that we'd love to kind of flag with you. And they're here again, you may have already started to answer, but we really want to know how can we ensure that universal pre-kindergarten will mean that no child misses out? So what are the things we need to be thinking about in this space? What do we need to know? What would you like to tell us as we begin this work? So let's see what we've got. So excellent, play-based learning and education and the non-compulsory nature of it is excellent. Slow it down, sorry. If we go back up, we've also got this notion around pay for staff, qualified staff, early childhood teachers, sorry, are essential. So qualified play-based educators, very important flexibility and qualified teachers. I'm guessing demographics is understanding those demographics of the population that we're here to serve and work with. Non-compulsory, and that's a really good point. We need to do some work around understanding parental choice and need, but also child choice and need. We can keep going down, a lot of emphasis on play-based, which is excellent. Notion about workforce, free, affordable, high quality. Should suit all family structures, which is a excellent point to make. We need to think about the combination. I can see in this comment as well, some combinations about long day care and preschool together. So thinking about the intersections of different service provision. Skills to help children transition into primary school, which are really good point. Thinking about that transition from ECE into school, milestone checks and curriculum in the play-based space, excellent. And quite a few emphasis on teachers, which is very, very good point. At least three days, so understanding too, current provision, maybe of two days, which is what I understand most kids currently get, at least needs to be three. Funding models, so thinking around the funding models we need to have in place, funding and more funding. Wonderful. Opportunity to repeat the third year. That's interesting, and we can come back to that. So support from healthcare providers, so that really connecting other services around the child and family in the place that they already go and play emphasis. Adequate space. So that's interesting as well. So making sure we've got capacity to increase and allow children to come more. And that is one that we're starting to hear, well, we are hearing very loudly. We need to think about the infrastructure in place we have for people. We've got emphasis. So age appropriate, staff ratios, branding, overhaul, that's interesting. Less care, more education. Interesting points. So it's around perceptions out there for families and understanding the value of this prioritization of children with additional needs or communities, interesting. There's quite a lot here. This is awesome to see. So fair for all services, preschools and long day care have the same opportunities for free services. So again, thinking across service systems, thinking about the funding models that we have in place across the system. Keep going. Not compulsory, appropriate behaviour. So thinking around the kind of, the focus on the development for children in that space. Interesting. Keep going. Some emphasis here without knowing what it is proposed, is difficult to say, fair point. And we do know that, and we will come back to you, once we've started this engagement work, and we're a bit clearer about what is actually being proposed. A point that it should be about benefit for children, play-based, not just about getting women into the workforce, good point. Convergent with school outcomes as part of every child's full continuum. So thinking about that developmental learning for the child across time and across service systems. There are some on affordable, great, and a focus on reducing the administrative burden. I can see here less focus on documentation and more focus on time and energy spent on the children. Wonderful. Thank you everyone. So a couple of things there have really come out. So it's something about affordability. So workforce, thinking about space, the quality of the programs that focus on development for children, transition to school. Flexibility, I can see here around hours, accommodation for working families, hours of operation, and also some things around branding and thinking through how people think about play-based education and learning and its role in development. Thank you. So moving ahead, the other question we were really keen to ask from you is what support would your community or service need to implement a universal pre-kindergarten year, so it supports all children? Money? Yes. More services in the area. It's interesting. More preschool places, location funding, bigger space. Space is one of those things we've really heard loud and clear. Transport to the service. We have heard that, around how do you access, making sure that every family can access it, whether they have a car or not. Quality staff, funding staff, okay. Auslan teachers, clear guidance on funding, funding for infrastructure, staff, staff, staff. Some really common things there we're hearing as well. Larger facilities we're hearing. Guidelines released before announcements made. It's a good point. We heard that yesterday as well, helping make sure that we give you guys notice before we announce things. So you can get your own services ready and manage that expectation from staff. Keep going. Places. So it's that component, the quality staff, capital funding, more ECTs. Yes, more places, great. Better funding for inclusion. So a bit of a focus on that space to help providers and services to think about what they need to do additionally, and maybe additional support for families and children. Help to fill current vacancies. That's interesting. So a bit of help, thinking around across markets, attraction and retention, speech therapy, access to those services, a renovation, staff, community-based services as families prefer this option. That's interesting. So I'm hearing variability of types of models as well. Transport, ratios, fixing staff's shortages. Wonderful. Thank you, that's really helpful to understand that. And so what we also wanted to hear here, is what great ideas or opportunities already exist, which we should be aware of. So we wanted to really hear from you, and this is our acknowledgement that it's not a blank slate, there is great work already taking place across and in places. So thinking about mobile preschools, consulting, yes. Wonderful, consulting widely, long day care is valued as community. So there are some examples of things you're already doing, prep class, community-based preschools on school sites, funding for additional needs, people being open before and after school care, wonderful. Mobiles, mobile preschool, community preschool, capital grants. So is the staffing emphasis. So many of these programs already exist, it's how we increase provision through staffing and capital. And it looks like there's also that link, that link between school, transition to school, but also links to other services like speech therapists, occupational therapists. Great. And what we'd love to do is when we get to the next slide, I'm going to ask again, if you could share some particular examples going ahead. Wonderful. So what I've heard... Bush preschool opportunities. That sounds great as well. So what I've heard, there's a lot already out there that we'll need to work with you on ahead. So moving forward, we just wanted to flag that there will be some more opportunities like this one to help us figure out the design of what universal pre-kindergarten should be over the year ahead. So this is some of the opportunities. And what I would say is, this is an eight-year reform, a 10-year reform. We've got a big runway, but we want to also start to do some work now. So part of that is talking to you. So making sure that we're getting out there and we're spending some time to understand the great work that you're already doing, and what are the gaps that we could be stepping in to support you with, as government. But also, we will need to start to pilot some of this work. So you'll see here on this slide, we've started some of the consultation, this road show here is part of that. But we're also announcing today, we would love to receive any written submissions from you, any public submissions, written advice. And we'll share that at the end of this, we've got the slide, another link where you can go in and you can provide us with your written response. And we'd love to hear examples from your particular patch, great examples that you think we need to come and listen to and speak to you about and learn a bit more. But we also will be wanting to do workshops and other smaller place-based consultation with you over October to December. And we'll be doing that with the ECE sector, public and non-government schools as well. We want to understand the full breadth of provision in this space. And we'll notify you on the opportunity to get involved in there. And please, in that public submission, please flag if you'd like to be involved in those workshops going ahead. And this is just for this year. What I would flag is our engagement work won't stop at the end of this year. It will need to go over the next couple of years as well, and probably continue. And that will be, it'll become more specific once we've had this initial opportunity with you, we'll then be able to come to you and go, "We've heard these ideas. These are some options and some models." Help co-design what it could look like in the future. And that is what the initial pilots here, that we would like to kick off early next year. We've got some initial seed funding money to start to build out and start to test and evaluate and measure what could make a difference in this space. And that will help us go back to treasury. They've given us this money, but as part of our approach in government, we also need to go back and say, "Look, we've done our due diligence. We think this is really valuable. This is where you need to invest the money," as we go ahead. And that's what some of those initial pilots will be looking at. We'll be wanting to look at things and we need to work through this still, but things like attendance patterns, those kind of extended hours options, whether there's additional roles or responsibilities that providers like yourself will want to put into place to help increase provision and availability for children in your local area. And those pilots will be learning opportunities. We want to make it really clear that we might try some things in that space, that we might go... Actually, it's not the best model for scaling out and rolling out. That actually, there are other models that we need to refine or test together, that won't be the best. So some of that is learning to know what will actually work in different areas and different locations ahead. We've heard really loud and strong and very clear, and it is an ambition for the department that a one size fits all model doesn't work for the diversity of communities and families that we're working with and providers. There will need to be some consistency, of course, but we'll want to work with you to figure out what are those consistent pieces that we want to include across a universal year of pre-kindergarten, and what are the spaces where local need or local assets require a different approach to this work ahead? And now we've got time for questions. And so I think the team have just posted in the chat, the opportunity for popping in and letting us know what you think in this space. So tell us, you know, great opportunities there to come and meet with you and understand a bit more. But also those things that you'd really want to see in a universal pre-kindergarten program going ahead. What would make you as a provider, be able to champion this out there with families and with your workforce as well? What are the kinds of things that would make you proud of delivering the universal pre-kindergarten system? That's what we'd really love to hear ahead. Kate.

- Thanks, Sarah. That was fantastic. And it's been great to see everyone's questions as they've come through. So we are going to... We've got a bit of time left now and we'll have the opportunity to answer some of those questions live. One of the earliest questions that came through, I'd like to ask you first, Sarah. So the question is, it might seem like semantics, but why is it called pre-kindergarten? Isn't this preschool already? The focus on preparing for school should be more focused on preparing for life, not just kindergarten.

- Mm. It's a good question. And I think it's partially because it's that universal notion of that year before pre-kindergarten and it is those developmental opportunities. And I think it's recognizing that in many people's minds, preschool has a certain place and it's delivered in a certain place in the service system. And we wanted to flag that this actually is a bigger investment by the government in a, it may be a preschool education and a model that we determine is the best way forward, but we didn't want to limit to that. That's why we wanted to consult. It almost like, calling it preschool, connotes that that is the thing that we need to be delivering. And there may be other models of this that we want to explore. It's got the genesis in that, but I guess it's that real emphasis on that year before school is a really key moment, that pre-kindergarten age is incredibly important. So it's that focus on pre-kindergarten, that pre-kindergarten model, that journey of children into school is really valuable and important. And it may very well be very similar to a preschool education model, but we acknowledged that it exists in the mind and the public in different ways. It's that year before school, that we really wanted to focus on. Kate.

- Thanks, Sarah. There are some really great comments as well about positivity and excitement at this announcement. And then a few questions around, I think they came in a bit earlier, but around how to consult. So Sue Ellen has asked a number of questions. So she said, "I understand that up to five days will be available for each child prior to school but has a number of questions about what services will provide. How will the funding take place? What will this be? School hours and school terms, and what will these teachers be paid. So I think this goes to your point, Sarah, about we really want to work with you as, you know, experts in delivering your work at the moment to determine how this could work in your services and in your communities. Did you want to--

- [Sarah] Yes.

- Add anything further, Sarah?

- No. And I think they're really valid points. There is some confusion when a big announcement like this gets made. But we need to do that work with you. So it may be that there is a range of models in this space and it's that future vision of what it could be. And we need to work with you. We don't want to predetermine it. We will be in this slightly uncomfortable position of working through it together, but that's also the intent. We want to work with you. We don't want to mandate that this is the best way forward. We actually understand that there's knowledge and expertise from the ECE sector, but also from school systems, but also from families and communities. And that it gives us an opportunity really, to rethink that model, to hold what is valuable and strong, but also go, is there additional things that we could be providing in this space, that we need to be doing and thinking as a society and communities, to achieve those big outcomes for kids?

- Great. Thanks, Sarah. If like me, you can hear a noise, I think Sarah's cat has come to say hello. The next question that I wanted to share with everyone has been uploaded quite a bit. So Carol Russell asks, who is delivering the pre-kindie program? Early childhood sector, such as long day care and community preschools or only DOE preschools? If you are increasing the number of DOE preschools, what does that mean for community-based preschools?

- Yes. It's a good question, Carol. And at this point we don't want to pre-empt, but it is a mixed model system. We really recognize that. The department of education is quite a small provider in this space. We know that the strengths and the breadth exist outside of the department, and we want to be really mindful of that. We can't do this alone. It's really clear and we don't want to do it alone. We know that families and children benefit from different options available to them. So whilst we are increasing the department of education provision in this space, we're going to work very closely with local services in those areas where we've identified potential need, to figure out, well, what implication can this have? And how do we make sure that it's increasing capacity and availability for families and not reducing that? The last thing we want is to build new sites or new services that actually lead to less choice and availability for families and children. So that is going to be one of the things that we need to work really closely at a place base and a level with you on, to make sure that we are not having that unintended consequence for children and families and providers. And that's why we don't want to do a, at this point, say, this is exactly how we're going to do it, and we're going to roll it out. The risk of that would lead to unintended consequences on a really valuable service system that we know we need to partner with.

- Fantastic. Thanks, Sarah. Elizabeth's asked about something you said earlier in the presentation about pre-kindergarten being free for families. So Elizabeth's asked will services be adequately funded to deliver free for families or will funding only cover minimum costs?

- Yes, it's a good question. And that's one of the things we need to work with you on. We want to make sure that we have a sustainable service system. And so the things you flagged around adequate funding, thinking about not only what New South Wales government provides, but what the federal state provides as well will be, sorry, federal government will be really important as well. We also have a role in function for lobbying the feds to make sure that we are investing adequately in this space. And that model is something we'll need to work with through with you, that requires detailed work to understand, you know, what is that split for you? How does it work currently? Where are the gaps? Where are you not getting the right kind of funding that we need to help make sure that services are sustainable as they go ahead? And that we can deliver quality care, but that will require a conversation with the federal government as well, to make sure that we're working across the childcare subsidy and other sources of income also.

- Just a similar one that we could clarify, Sarah. So Juliet has said, you are saying that long day care, community preschools and department preschools will all continue to provide early childhood education and care once pre-kindergarten is rolled out. Does this mean we will not provide pre-kindergarten? I'm a primary school educator with 20 years experience and my skillset is for this age group. So it feels like Juliet's worried she'll be left out.

- Yes. Definitely not. That's not the intention. I think what it is recognizing that we want to make a real focus on that year before school. The evidence shows that's a really fundamental age. However, we also know the evidence shows that the first two years of pre-kindergarten, quality education are really important. We've got this commitment for funding for this year before. It may be that once we start this work, we recognize that we need to really increase our investment. But we need to get the evidence for that. It's the approach of government to make sure that whatever investments we're making, we're starting in a sensible way. I would love it if we'd been able to argue treasury for even more money, but we need to show them that we're going to do this in evidence-based way to secure that additional funding ahead as well. So this focus, definitely, please be reassured we need more of you. We don't want to lose any educators, any teachers from this space, we need more and more of you. So please, we need you to be a part of this journey. It's definitely not intended that you won't have a place going ahead and a role. We need more of you to continue to do that really important, valuable work with children and families. And in fact, your role's going to become even more valuable as we go ahead.

- Thanks, Sarah. There's an interesting one here. Someone might have seen there was media recently. I think Minister Mitchell mentioned the school starting age. And so someone has said, I think New South Wales needs to make it very clear about eligibility to go to school.

- [Sarah] Yes.

- There is currently an 18-month gap between the youngest and oldest child attending kindergarten, which is huge. Why doesn't New South Wales just align it per the school year, not July 31st?

- Mm. And it is one of those pieces of work that we are looking at as a department. And we've recognized that that can be really challenging for families and for schools and for ECE provision as well. So that's a piece of work that's connected obviously to the early universal pre-kindergarten. If kids are going to be delaying their start to school, we need to make sure that quality provision of kindergarten education is there, but they are slightly separate. They're not coming because of each other. They are both real issues. And we want to make sure that all kids are starting school in the best way possible. At the moment as the commentator has, sorry, the questionnaire has pointed out, there is that 18-month difference in some places. And we know that that can have a negative impact on that child's start to school. And education and learning teacher's ability to help all children in that class, and also for families as well. So it is definitely one of those things that we are looking at, at the moment.

- Thanks, Sarah. There are so many fantastic questions coming through. One here about families and parents understanding, and we haven't had a question about families yet. So I might ask that one. Does also calling this pre-kindergarten limit parents' understanding as they will interpret this to be only beneficial if on a school ground, rather than within their community with a diverse offering?

- Yes, it's a really good question. And it's definitely something we don't want to happen. That's another possible unintended consequence of this. And so we would really, as we start the consultation work, we want to understand from... We want to further understand that. We will be undertaking research work with families, and eventually with children as well, to the point some people have made they can often, parent and family choice and need can often be intention. They're not always aligned, but we'll need to do that work with families to understand their perceptions around the current service system and their needs. And we want to avoid any opportunity for an unintended consequence of privileging certain quality education over others. The emphasis for us really is about quality and it's about understanding needs differ, and that different provision in different places can really lead to excellent quality outcomes for children and better meet families' needs. And so that is what we'll be emphasizing and talking about through this work. And that would be our focus. If you are helping, if the work that you do is helping to achieve those outcomes for children and families, and the quality of that provision is really strong and clear, we want you as part of this future journey and this future vision. And we'll need to then think about, well, what do we need to do as a steward of a service system in the government to make sure that parents and workforce understand that that quality, it doesn't exist just in one location.

- Thanks, Sarah. There are a few questions in here we saw earlier in the presentation that there are people from all sorts of regional and rural areas of the state. And there's a question here from Nicole that touches on that. So I thought we might go to that one next. Nicole says, you've mentioned that you will need to look at each area differently, but how will you ensure that what you're doing is going to be right for each individual town, for example, living in a rural town and being the only preschool available and the local primary school, talking about having the pre-kindergarten placed at their primary school would send our small preschool of 50 years broke. How will you ensure that this won't happen in small rural town?

- Yes. And it's a really good question. And it's one of the areas of concern that we have heard. And that's why we want to do it in a phased approach. We're very clear that we need to do that work with you, in local area. And to emphasize that when we think about provision on school site, that we're making sure that we are looking beyond the school gates. Schools have a really important role in the community, but so do existing community preschools and long day care providers and other early childhood care services. So we'll need to be doing that work with you. And part of that is what the pilot work is to, to understand what some of different touch points or engagement points are, or the different models that we might need to design, depending on different regional variation and need. And we'll need to work with you every step of the way to understand that. So what I would do is encourage writing to us, tell us about your particular circle, your local area, and those challenges. And we'll be working really closely with school infrastructure, with schools, with local existing providers to figure out what works best for community in your local area.

- Thanks, Sarah. We've got time for a couple more. Chloe's made a really interesting comment, I feel like Australia ECE has a real branding issue with emphasis on caring for children. I feel that this leads to the devaluation of skill in society where educators and teachers are seen as caregivers, rather than educators. I feel that the language used to promote whatever model is determined, needs to focus on the education side of things more than the care, essentially marketing the program to promote clear expectation and respect amongst those in the sector.

- Yes. This is quite a personal passion for me, in that my mother was a, she's just retired, was a community preschool director. And so witnessing, I guess, I completely agree and witnessing her impact on the children and now adults in the town that I grew up with, Wollongbar, made it really clear to me that this wasn't just about care. This was about the development, the social skills, the ability to interact with the world, that those children who are lucky enough to have my mom as a preschool teacher have benefited from, and myself as well, of course. So I completely agree. And I do think some of this work, a lot of this is around perception around what families think and value in this kind of education and teaching space. And also to make sure that we are acknowledging the amazing skills and professionalism and impact that teachers and educators have on kids and families' lives. So all I can say is I hear that really loud and strong. It is 100% why we are very clear that it isn't just about care. We have the childcare fund that is focused on not just the education component of those early years. The pre-kindergarten space is really closely focused on education and learning for kids. That is why we've got this focus on that year before school. It's not about care. We have the fund to focus on more of those care aspects that families may need, but it's that really focus. It's not an extra year of school, but it's that extra year of ensuring that every child has access to quality play-based education and learning. And we are really mindful of that. And we commit to being really conscious of that in our communication, and you're spot on, we may need to do some work around that as well, beyond just the government and the sector.

- Thanks, Sarah. There's a fantastic former early childhood teacher, who's a colleague now, and she talks a lot about education and care needing to go together and you can't... You know, a child might not learn well, if they're not feeling cared for. So I think we absolutely realize the importance of education and care in the early years. There's a really interesting one here. And look, I have to say, there are so many fantastic questions coming through. We might not get to them all, but we'll let you know at the end the next steps for this. But there's a really fantastic question about support for children with additional or higher needs. So Kylie asks, will there be consideration for these children with additional needs? And sorry, my screen is jumping around. So Kylie, I won't say your question verbatim, but essentially Kylie was asking, will there be consideration for children with additional needs? For example, there are early intervention units.

- [Sarah] Yes.

- And what will be the support provided for those children?

- Yes. I can't tell you what it will be because we need to do that work with you. Welcome great examples of what's already in place and how we could scale and grow those. But we have a very strong commitment. This needs to work for every child, regardless of background and their location, which is why it's quite a big, big, big challenging vision. And which is why we can't do it by ourselves. But yes, we are really keen to understand that children need different variations and models of this, and providers need that support to make sure that those models that help them achieve the best outcome for them, that they can actually do that. So we also recognize that comes with funding or requirement for funding and training and support as well in that space. So that is our ambition, definitely, to work towards that with you.

- Thanks, Sarah. There's a lovely one here from Lynn saying, thank you. Love finally, the recognition. And then she's asking about three-year-olds. So as an experienced teacher for over 35 years, in preschool, the value of children attending for two years, sometimes three years is so beneficial. Children need time to develop skills and repetition to practice.

- Yes. And look, let's put that as our next ambition is what I would say. We definitely hear you on that. What I've learned working across governments and leading reforms like this is we need to start, we've got this amazing opportunity where we've got this funding to invest in that year before school, if we can build the evidence base and the influence and the work to really take this forward, then I believe we can also extend it to those earlier years completely. And so I guess that's why we really want to work with you. We want to make sure this is a success. So whether it's through involvement in pilot work and putting your hand up and saying, yes, we'd love to work with you to figure out how do we increase that capacity. How do we show the impact and kind of get that evidence base, which we've already got great evidence for, but maybe it's to show in practice, how can we do it across New South Wales in different ways, to help secure that funding as we go ahead, but also to go, "Well, look, we've raised our vision and our ambition here, but now we need to raise it even higher." So I'm up for that if the sector is up for it. What I, when I went to a school on Friday, I was reflecting with the principals, 'cause they were kind enough to show us around the preschools they had on site. And they were like, "Well, what happens post-election?" And look, I don't know, none of us know that, but what I definitely feel is that argument for investing in this as a profession, in this as a key educational step for children, and I think we've won that. We've won the value of this. It's not over, we still need to convince more and that work with families and other providers. But I do feel like regardless of elections or political parties, that there is a shift in belief in community and society, that this is a really valuable thing. We now need to catch up and make sure that we actually put in place those things to help us realize that vision. So I think I would say that sits also with that ambition for not just four- and five-year-olds, but earlier. If we make this work and we get this impactful and making that outcome, then I think, I think the door will be pushed open. The door will be ready for us to push through and to argue for more investment and funding in this space. That's my hope and ambition. And I know that that good practice is out there, we just need to work with you to figure out how do we grow it to scale? How do we help you increase that capacity to do that for you? So I think we're almost at time, but I guess that's the commitment that my team and I have, and my colleagues across the department, is I feel this is quite a big responsibility for us to have, and we're doing this in partnership with you. It's not something we want to do to you. We definitely want to do it together. So we may make mistakes along the way, and we will, we always do. Humans do and big bureaucracies like government do make mistakes, but please let us know. If we're developing something or engaging in a way that doesn't work for you, please let us know so that we can change our approach and that we make sure that we're working in proper partnership with you ahead.

- Thanks, Sarah. And I think that's a good way to finish. And I'll just mention that someone said, you have so many ECE professionals that want to help design this, so it works for everyone, families, children and services alike. And the person acknowledges that there was disappointment in the announcements being made prior to consultation. But I think just to recap, Sarah's message is very clear today that we, you know, for various reasons, that the timing took place that way. But the decision has been that there'll be extensive consultation with all of you. And we want to make sure that we are doing that. So in the last minute, if we can just show the slides that give people the information about where to go. So I'd like to say again, thank you so much for all your fantastic questions. I think we had over 300 questions coming in during that time. And we've tried to answer as many as we could either live or in the chat, but we do know that we couldn't get to all of them. So please keep an eye out for further communications coming through. If you're not already signed up to the regular communications that come through, then please do that. You can get in touch with us through that early years commitment email there, and really key thing that we're very excited for you to do is join that, have your say online submissions process. So the link is in the chat. It will also be sent out to everyone once the participation ends. And just so you know, we'd love everyone to provide whatever answers you're comfortable to through that. It doesn't have to be, you know, very formal piece. It can be if you would like it to be, but there's a simple text box there that you can fill in and give us your feedback as well. Thanks, Sarah, for your time today and your presentation. And thank you so much to everyone who joined online, the team working in the background, and we really look forward to hearing from you further.

- Thanks Kate. Thanks everyone. Chat to you all soon.

- Yes. Bye.

- Good morning, everyone. I see lots of numbers popping up. I hear we have quite a turn up for this session. So we are going to wait a few seconds to allow people to join. Hi Robin from Bullaroo And we have Kathy, hi, Kathy. We've got quite a few people, 143 and still going up. So we are going to still wait a little bit longer. Maybe one more minute or so.

- [Gill] We haven't arranged beautiful hold music. Have we Mady?

- No, we haven't. Do you know anything?

- [Gill] Our own minds, yes.

- Maybe we should do some jokes.

- [Gill] Gorgeous picture on the screen and welcome everyone who's joining us. I think we kick off Mady and people will catch up.

- That's great. A warm welcome to the session from all of us here at the Department of Education and from the team, the Brighter Beginnings team, we are here to discuss the health and development checks work that we started to work on, to implement, well, not to implement, but to design to co-design with all of you. And we are very keen to hear from you today and from our guest speakers. But before we begin, I'll start by acknowledging that we all meet on Aboriginal lands and pay my respect and our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and any Aboriginal people here on this session today, I'd like to reflect on the work that we all do for the little children in Aboriginal communities. And that is a strong guide for us in this work as well. Before I pass on to Gill to take us through some background slides and introduction and a little bit about what this work is all about. Just a few housekeeping notes, the microphone, video, and chat functions for all of you are disabled. Just the panelists are able to be able to speak and have their video show. But please do ask your questions in the Q and A section, as we've seen some of you have already said hello. And if you see any questions that are interesting or that you agree with, please vote them up so we can answer them as much as we can. We will attempt to answer questions by typing, but also we might flag a few to answer at the end, we have two, three guest speakers today. And so some of the questions will be for us. And some of them will be for our guest speakers later on. The session is recorded. I hope you can see the red button there. And if you don't want to be recorded, you can also ask questions as anonymous. And obviously we want to hear from you as our roadshows are here about engagement, as well as sharing information. We have, we don't have a QR code actually. We've had some technical issues with the QR code, but we will put a link in the chat so that you can give us some of your input and we'll contact you after the session. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Gill White our fearless leader, Executive Director, most of you are probably very familiar with her and her work in this space. Take it away Gill. You're on mute.

- Oh, goodness gracious years in, need the tee-shirt. You are on mute for all of these Teams meetings. So I was just saying, thank you so much, Mady, and it's so delightful to have almost 200 people join us this afternoon to discuss health and developmental checks in the context of the Brighter Beginnings work that was a key part of the New South Wales budget. I'd also like to Acknowledge Country that I'm here on Dharug land in Paramatta today, and pay respects to Elders past present and emerging. As Mady said, I'm just gonna give a little bit of a summary of the health and developmental checks work, how it fits with Brighter Beginnings and how we're trying to work really collaboratively with early childhood education services, health professionals, our local area health districts, other experts in the field, research and academics on how we undertake this most amazing and exciting opportunity to deliver on this government's promise for health and developmental checks to be available to all four year olds in preschool settings. And when we say preschools, we mean anywhere that children are getting their preschool education. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. As Mady also said, we have three wonderful guests, Amy Shine, Cathryn Albert, and Tania Rhymes, who are going to talk about some of the ways that they have been invested in child development and different kinds of health and developmental checks and processes in their services and in their experience to enrich our understanding as a collective about the options for delivery and the options to really get right that early childhood and health integration, which I know is so essential and so essential to the passion and commitment that we see across the early childhood sector. So just a little bit of summary on Brighter Beginnings. I hope many of you have heard about Brighter Beginnings. That's the name, the New South Wales' government has given to a whole of government initiative focused on the fundamental importance of the first 2000 days of life, or in other words, from a baby being conceived all the way through to them turning up at the school gates and then the movement on through that journey. Minister Mitchell, the Minister for Education and Early Learning is the lead minister, which is a phenomenal opportunity for us in the Department of Education to be sitting here and thinking about how we get it right between wonderful early childhood education opportunities, the entry into school and the interaction with health, with community services, with regional New South Wales, with Aboriginal Affairs. So what we're really focused on is building awareness and understanding by families and by service providers of the fundamental importance of the first 2000 days, that really rich evidence base the centrality of all the brain development that's occurring there. We're working on improving access to the universal provisions that are fundamental in those first five years of life. And we're also looking at targeted interventions and support for those families and children who need it the most. What you'll see on that screen is a summary also of a set of initiatives that were funded by the New South Wales government in the last budget to really turbocharge our Brighter Beginnings work. So many of you will know about affordable preschool and that's gonna be covered in other sessions in this roadshow, I think one this afternoon. Today, we're gonna focus on the health and developmental checks in ECE, which is a partnership between our New South Wales health colleagues and the Department of Education. But what you'll see there is also some really significant investments in nurse home visiting programs, sustaining New South Wales families, a commitment to the expansion and the sustainability of Aboriginal child and family centres, expansion of pregnancy family conferencing with work by communities in justice and health and digitizing of the blue book. Now that's not all we are doing across agency, but they are the things that we got additional money for to really turbo charge over the coming years, which we're very excited about. So if we move to the next slide, this is just to zero in on the health and developmental checks and place us in today's conversation. The government's committed $111.2 million over four years to bring health and developmental checks into New South Wales' preschools in partnership with health professionals from 2023. And the call to action is that we know that almost half of our four year old children do not get their recommended health and developmental checks either at the GPs or at child and maternal health systems. And so the idea of this reform and this approach is we know that most children are getting some form of preschool and early learning experience. We need to bring the health and developmental checks to that space and that space that's often a very safe space for families and children to ensure that we get that information, that advice, and that we have the potential to really help on the referral pathways for any additional needs and supports that children have. So that's the big statement in terms of what the money's for, but as Mady mentioned, and I touched on before we know that to make this work and to make it really sustainable, we need to think very carefully about the models and how we work with a really diverse sector and with really diverse health and education professionals. So we are purposely spending a couple of months gathering more information and advice, including from some of the people that we''ll hear from today, but from others as well. And we welcome your contributions in the Q and A function. And we'll also have some ways of getting in touch with us if you've got personal experience. We also know that there have been health and developmental checks done in various forms over many years. And many of you that have been around the sector for a long time may have had an experience where you had something in place at a service that you are working at for a few years. And then the funding ran out or something, there was a change in personnel or something went wrong. And so we are really interested in thinking about how we make this a sustained investment and we get the sustained commitment from the government and non-government players that are relevant. So if we move to the next slide, this goes without saying to all of you on this call about why this work is so important. But just to emphasize, I mentioned how a few children, how many children are missing out on their four year old developmental checks. We know there's barriers for families for that, but we also know the outcomes that when we do the AEDC the Australian early development census, every three years, we know that two in five children start school developmentally off track. And we all know if we can reduce the number of children that are developmentally off track at the beginning of school, then we have a really strong opportunity to set them up really well for life. So if we move to the next slide. Now, I just wanted to acknowledge that this session today comes on the back of a May roadshow that we received some really wonderful and positive feedback about which was two extraordinary women. Many of you might have joined that session, Dr. Catherine Neilsen-Hewett and Dr. Elisabeth Murphy, who talked about the state of child development, a range of their research perspectives, their absolute passion and commitment for this work, which is really central to our thinking about health and developmental checks. So we won't cover all that now, but please feel free to tap into that previous road show. If you want a little bit of a boost in the morning as to why the work that you do is so unbelievably important and how exciting it is that that way that we've got this next stage commitment on this work. We move to the next slide. This is giving you a sense of where we are with this work on health and developmental checks and give you the confidence that we are both really focused on the delivery of health and developmental checks for all four year olds. But we need to do this in partnership and make sure we are getting it right and trying and testing and learning along the way. So, as you'll see, we are in this big consultation phase, we are having some really targeted sessions, some really detailed interviews. We've got a bunch of research, but sessions like this are our higher level, but we still get some great insights through the chat and through anything that you provide us afterwards. And as I said, if you feel like you wanna get more involved, please do reach out. What we're gonna do is very soon be identifying our early adopters services and services that might be working really closely with local area health districts, or doing their own kinds of models and how we test those approaches and think about how we would scale them up across whole regions or in service types. So we'll be recruiting those early adopters very soon. And then as we go into the last part of the year and into the next year, there's going to be some testing and piloting of that. Obviously we're very conscious of their Christmas shutdown periods, but we'll work with services on how we make that meaningful. And then as you see, we'll do the rollout in phases. We that's gonna have to be really well informed about where services are at. We're really conscious of not adding to administrative burden, but we're also equally conscious that there are many services who are really excited and really keen on this work. So we'll have to be working on our strategy for rollout. So that's the overall plan. If we move on. Now, I told Mady who is an amazing design thinker. She had to simplify this slide just a little bit, 'cause sometimes it does my head in, but this is just to give you a real sense that there's always a risk that government can consult, but not really, really deeply understand stakeholder perspectives and the range of views on the ground. And so this is just us trying to give you that confidence that as we think, as we unpack the work that we do, we are seeking to really go, okay, the government announcement is our point of departure. It's our starting point, but we really need to understand the current realities work through the research. Ideate, test things in that prototype and testing phase before we even think about scaling. So this is design methodology. Some of you might be really used to it. Some of you, this might be a new way of conceptualizing it, but it's to take very seriously that we know that if this is to stick, we really need to understand our families, what their needs are, their confidence about privacy and all of those issues of having health and developmental checks. What will work with services from the really practical point of view of where will these checks be held in our service? When will they occur all the way through to really thinking about the intersection with pedagogy and teaching and learning and referral pathways. So there's important complex issues for us to unpack and we're really keen to do that work thoroughly. So this is to just give you a bit more of the statistics on that consultation and design work that we've been doing. We've done interviews. I mentioned deep focus work, focus groups, as well as workshops. We've got a number of academics on our early childhood advisory group that are making contributions and a really significant literature review undertaken with academic partners led by our health colleagues. We're doing deep dives with a range of other interested parties. So we're trying to be as comprehensive as possible to understand the landscape. And really also, and I haven't mentioned this yet. We know that everything we do in this space has to be culturally safe and we need to be thinking about specific connections in through the Aboriginal service system and what might work for Aboriginal controlled services and services where there are a number of Aboriginal children and where that family dynamic is really important to get right. So this gives you a sense of what we've learned so far from those deep dives in those discovery sessions. The first key insights that we've heard, and hopefully this resonates with you is that an integrated health and early childhood education approach is highly beneficial. There's risks, if it's seen as a completely health led thing where it's just health professionals coming into the service and then leaving, what's the connection with early childhood services, but there's an incredible benefit from that health expertise as well. So how do we think about collaboration principles and sharing an agenda and measurement and reinforcing activities and backbone support. The second key insights is that relationships are key, but they take time to build. So it is about the rollout of these developmental checks, but how do you keep growing and strengthening those relationships with the local area health system and all of the service system providers and families. And of course that strong leadership and capability building are essential. And the third key insight is that integrating checks into early childhood education can create virtual learning cycles and can be really beneficial to practice for both early childhood practitioners and for health practitioners. So there are some of the, there's variations in the model, but these are the insights that seem relevant to all of the models. And so I think that is the last slide for the intro pack of come co-design with us, post it note virtually share your knowledge and expertise, and we've got some links in there. So I have the pleasure now of introducing our first guest speaker to take some of that big picture thinking and ground us in some exciting realities. So it's a delight to introduce Amy Shine from Forbes Preschool. Many of you would know about the extraordinary leadership that Amy shows for Forbes and the great work that she does, but you might wanna hear more in depth or this might be new to you. So handing over to you, Amy, thanks so much for being here.

- Thanks Gill. It is an absolute delight to be here today. I could talk about this subject for hours and hours, but I've only got 10 minutes. So I'll try and get as much in as I can. I'd just like to acknowledge the beautiful Wiradjuri land I meet with you all on today, wherever you may be from. So I've been here for a little bit over 10 years at Forbes Preschool. And when I first moved to Forbes Preschool, the thought of an OT or a speech therapist, or working with any allied health people was quite foreign to the staff and our community. And in my background, I'd worked with these sorts of, with allied health at Gilgandra Preschool. So I really wanted to change and get that acceptance across our whole community. And I think something that really resonates with me too, is it's about a whole community approach, not just our preschool and once we can get that and our family's all involved, we're gonna have better long term outcomes for our children and our families across the whole community. It's not just about our isolated service. Obviously it starts with us at preschool. So I think, yes, over 10 years ago, even our educators didn't have much knowledge about what does an OT do, or why do we need a speech therapist and who does? So it was about really getting lots of training for our staff and really upskilling so that we could have those conversations with families when we needed to and understand what was typical development to what needed further intervention. So by upscaling our staff first, and this was a long process, like we've done some amazing things over 10 and 11 years, but it has been a real process and it takes lots of time. And we had to engage with, I think, the right therapist as well. So we employed a speech therapist and we had an OT come in and do lots of training with this. We developed a mainstream program that all of our children had access to the year before school. So that was in our initial days because we really wanted that concept of therapy and how OT and speech therapy could benefit all of our children, not just children with really high needs. And it's really shifted our parents in the way that they see the therapists work with our families in our community. And because they're actually employed by Forbes Preschool, and they're in our space, it's like the new norm and people want to want to come here and they want their child to see an OT or a speechie or a, we have a play therapist. We have quite a myriad of different things happening here. They're just the most obvious. So one mum came in the other day and her child had some speech needs and we were like, we can do a referral. And she was a young Aboriginal, quite vulnerable mum. And she was like, oh, you know, can't get up to community health. And it's really hard. And then when we talked about how we could offer that service here under our roof and how we can all partner together, the relief I could physically see in her body when she was like, oh, would you really? And just that trust of, because we have that culturally safe relationship and they trust us, which is built over time. They're not difficult conversations to have anymore, and it's not just left up to me. My whole team can do it. And I think we all are on that journey together now. And it's a really culturally safe space. It doesn't matter who you are or what background you're from. We all have that same ethos of how we treat our families and who's available. And that understanding for the staff of who is available in our community. So that's another thing that we've grown. We have two community rooms at preschool, and obviously not everyone can do that, but it's one thing that we have grown in the last probably three years more so. So we have the child and family health nurses work from preschool two days a week. So we don't employ them. That's part of community health. So they run a mother's group one day and they run a popup clinic for anyone in our community. But having that wraparound service all under one roof just builds our sense of community. And it's great for us because we can go and say, hey, do you know this child? And they can tell us about their birth or what's happened before or a family can go to them and they can come to us and say, this child really needs to be enrolled at preschool because we have a big wait list. And if we have that bit of background knowledge, we can prioritize the children if we do need to, if we didn't know that otherwise that family might just go on our wait list and they might not access an early education before they get to school. So I think that's really vital as well. What else do we do? We do so much, we've since become NDIS providers. The reason we did that was we had those partnerships with our therapists in town, and we could identify that some children needed individual therapy, but they couldn't access it or they'd have to go on a long wait list. So we were like, well, we might give this a go. I'm not saying to everyone go out there and become NDIS providers. It is really hard work. And we had to have that really good background knowledge and access to professionals that could deliver individual therapy, but that's just been a really nice wraparound service for us as well. And to have NDIS under our roof with our therapists again, under our roof, we're just minimizing the doors that people have to go through. And I don't mean doors as in literal doors that you open and close, but it's that under one roof approach, it's that we're all here together. And we can all share information. And if a family's a little bit nervous to go and see someone, or they dunno what they need to say, we're there to support them with those conversations. So I think that's been really positive and it's now, initially 10 years ago it was, oh, my child doesn't need therapy, or it was quite a resistance, but now it's just such an acceptance and people are coming here saying, I hear you girls will look after me. I hate to say girls, but that's the reality. I hear you girls will look after me. And I think my child needs help and I need help. So having that change in our perception in our community is so positive. And I just think, keep knocking on doors and keep asking, because you have to ask and you have to put yourself out there, 'cause it's not gonna come to you.

- Thank you so much, Amy. I love that there were a lot of doors near the end, the knocking on the doors, but the breaking down some doors. And what I also, I mean, Amy is tenacious, but I also love the references that we're really conscious that if you've got more space in a regional area, you might be able to physically create some more of these areas, or you've all got different funding arrangements in place, depending on the service type. So not absolutely everything might be doable for all, but just hearing about those opportunities and thinking about what might work in your service. And as we think about how do we roll out dev checks for all, how can we learn from places like Forbes and think about how we can do that elsewhere as well. So thank you so much, Amy, and further down the road that also a service that I have been delighted to visit. We have Cathryn Albert with us from Dubbo West Preschool. So it'd be great Cathryn, if you could take us through your approach at Dubbo West.

- Hi Gill, I'm pretty much like Amy. I have a lot of similarities to Amy and I sit on Wiradjuri land as well. So we are quite close in distance, I suppose, but we're a little bit different about getting to the end result that Amy's been talking about. So for us, we have our own developmental checklists and we kind of weave that into what we do at the preschool. So I've heard a lot of comments around how we're gonna fit something else in. I guess we don't fit it in it's part of our work. So our observation rounds are held around those. So we've set our teaching and learning goals that kind of match our developmental checklists as well, term to term. We have in our observation rounds, sorry, in term one, we do our social skills in getting to know the kids. And then we slide our developmental checklist into term two. So then our focus for our program and our ongoing programming comes from those developmental checklists. And then we kind of work on those in term three. And then we work in term four to look at those checklists again and just see what growth the children have made between term two and term four. So we do graph that and we particularly look at literacy and numeracy for one of our reporting bodies, but overall, we get to see how much the kids have grown when they've been at the preschool. From that work we also do screeners. So all of our staff a lot like Amy's have done a lot of training. So they're all trained in delivering a speech assessment and an OT assessment. So we've developed those with the people that work around us as well. So speechies and OTs have had input into them and we work out if we need to send them off for a referral, but we also connect like Amy does too. So we'll give them a call and let them know through a triage type system that maybe these children are higher priority than any other children that we've sent through or they're heading off to school may really need to be seen, or they're an extreme case. So that helps with the triage of their waiting list as well. We also do here our heart come in and do our hearing testing. So we do a little bit of the health stuff with the professionals as well. We have the steps program come in and do the eye testing. Our NDIS providers I suppose in Dubbo have been really good. So they do the assessment, which is what Amy's taken on, but we have people that do that really well here. Our gap, I guess, in this area is having the specialist to then see the children. So a lot of them have got big packages, but we have a real gap with being able to get someone to service that. So for us, we've had to come up with some innovative ideas, I suppose, and we've tried all sorts of things. And again, I've been here 10 years and over that period, I've seen the growth and difference in the area. So being connected with all of those professionals that we need to be involved with and having regular meetings with them has changed how they deliver their process and has given them the priorities that we have as well. So we're talking a similar language, I suppose. I'm not sure there's much else. Well, we do have a therapy room. So Amy did say that she added to her preschool. What we did was develop a span line room. So one of our span line areas became a room. So that is now our therapy room or our playroom. And we've got a dedicated staff member that delivers therapy across the preschool. So she can do that one on one with a group of children, or she can transition them back into their preschool rooms. So as they get towards going to school, sometimes they need transitioning back into the rooms to understand how they can work within that group, I suppose. So there's some of the systems we do use.

- Thank you Cathryn And good to hear just some of the differences, a couple of people put on the chat like, whoa, that's a big thing Amy's taken on with the NDIS part. So it's absolutely only one avenue and it's not gonna be part of what we are doing here necessarily. But what we do wanna do is make sure that we give some practical advice on saying here's how the models of health and development checks could roll out. These are some of the things that you might wanna think about as well, or here's some options. So just thinking about how we can give people those avenues and some kind of practical assistance if that's useful. Thank you, Cathryn, a great service as well. And then I'm very excited to introduce our third guest who's Tania Rhymes, and she's from the Southeast Sydney local area health district. So a bit of a shift into a Metro context and thinking differently in terms of a clinic that's on a school site, that's a kind of broader age group. So really interested to hear from you, Tania, and thanks so much for being with us.

- No problem, thank you for having me. And I'm coming here today from Bidigal land. I, yes, it's very different what we provide, but also very similar to what Cathryn and Amy were talking about in terms of needing to work and integrate with services and be where the families are in a space that they feel comfortable and safe in. So the way this program started about six years ago, we had some child, local childcare centre support play groups, a family worker program who were working with vulnerable families in the Rockdale area saying we have concerns about our families. And even though your community health centre is located three blocks away, they will not go down there for a range of reasons. So we bought the services up the road, two blocks up the road to the supported playgroup. The childcare centre was next door, and eventually we have grown into a much larger program. So we have services right from maternity all the way through to the local primary school, Rockdale public school, involved making referrals for child development checks to see our child and family health nurse. So those development checks include gross motor, fine motor, speech and communication, hearing and vision, weight and growth and oral health. And we do those right from four weeks of age up until the child turns five. But in terms of the childcare centres we have involved. Basically we have private, we have community based childcare centres. We have long daycare and we have preschool and they all are involved differently. So they're all within walking distance of where we're located. And as Gillian said, we're located on the grounds of Rockdale public school. We were located in one of the NGOs, which is across the road, but we outgrew their space and they're all involved differently. And that depends on the childcare centres are involved. That depends on their capacity. It depends on how they view how this work fits with their everyday core business. And it depends on I suppose, their funding as well. We find there's a big difference between our community based preschools and childcare centres and our privately owned ones. So we have a range of the way the referrals can come into us. So some of our I'll call them preschools for the want of a collective word, is that some just promote the child development checks. They say where our nurse is. It's one number in, we're flexible with our appointments. We will make the appointments longer, shorter, at different times of the day, which is a bit different to our mainstream services or we'll partner on the back of other screening programs. So I think Cathryn, you mentioned the steps program and we also have speech screening programs going in. We might put a little bit about a consent to see the child and family health nurse on that. And families will often tick that if they want the check done, and then we actually call the families. So that's a little bit different to the way families access our mainstream services, which is they have to actually call an intake line. Maybe there's a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about trying to catch each other where we actually, as part of the hub, we will actually ring the families and we will do the chasing to make sure they get the appointment. So that's the self referral pathway. We also have a facilitated referral pathway, which sounds more like what Cathryn and Amy do, which is it's actually the early childhood centre educators who actually make the referral to our child and family health nurse. And then we ring the family and we find that's the way we get the most traction. And then, so the families aren't actually having to make that referral. They're not having to, I suppose chase the health services. We also put all the referrals in place if they need speech, if they need OT, we will actually do that on behalf of the families. We won't give them a number and say, here call the speech therapist or call the OT. We've just had speech actually come on site. So that's good. So they're also now co-located with us. In terms of what's worked really well, I think is actually that supported referral. We also do feedback loops to our childcare centres and educators as well. So if they actually make a referral to us, we will feed back to them and let them know what the outcome was. A, whether we're allowed actually able to get in contact with the family, whether we had any concerns, obviously the families are, that's with their consent. We won't feed anything back if the families don't consent to that, but that's been really useful in terms of the early childhood educators actually have the ongoing relationship with the family. They're able to work with the family and follow up with the family and if the family have any questions, they actually feel more comfortable talking to the early childhood educators than they do contacting health. So that's always a really nice relationship to have. We don't have, we have an NDS provider who works with us as a partner on the hub. That's really useful as well, because if we need to know where they are on waiting lists, if we need to know whether they've made contact, whether they've taken up the offer of NDIS having that communication is really useful as well. So getting to know the other workers and that relationship is really important to, I suppose, support the families, to help them stay connected with services and access, what they need. In terms of the screening that some of our early childhood educators do. As I said, some engage in the program at all different levels, some will just promote. We've had other childcare centres or preschools who will actually do the blue book screen. So in the New South Wales health blue book, there is a checklist that parents fill out and some of our educators will actually use that as part of their enrolment process. So when families are coming in, filling out the enrolment forms to come into preschool and giving their immunisation history status, they'll also ask them to fill this self-report out. That I suppose starts the conversation around child development within the early childhood setting. And if there's anything that I suppose the educators need to talk to the families about, say six months or 12 months later, they then they use that as a tool to have that conversation again. At one of our other centres, they actually have someone who's, I think this is very rare from what I understand. Who's actually dedicated two days a week, who is a learning and support person within the preschool who actually does all the talking with the families and puts those referrals in place and supports families supposed to access those services. So she does that as part of her role. Don't think there's anything else from me.

- Thank you that's great, Tania, and really good example of an approach that can work with a number of different services and really interesting to think of those sort of different approaches between the services that are supported by the Rockdale children and families hub and what a gorgeous photo as well. So thank you so much for our three guest speakers. Now, as I was at, pains to say we're at the discovery phase at the moment about what could health and developmental checks in all preschool settings look like in terms of the rollout of that from next year. And so this is just giving you a flavour of the way that particular services have approached that. And I saw one of the questions in the chat is isn't this what early childhood educators do. And to some extent absolutely it is. But I think what we need to be thinking about also is we know that those checks that happen through the blue book, there's lots of kids missing out. We have the wonderful steps program, but that's not integrated with these other things. So we're thinking about how do we make this more systematic and for everyone to benefit from. So I thought I would take a few of the questions in the Q and A, and just make sure everyone's had a sort of opportunity to hear. So Cathryn, I'm putting you in the hot seat because there were a couple of questions that were about your short presentation and they're kind of covering the same thing, which is what sort of upskilling or specialization did you need from your preschool staff to do some of the work that you talked about. So it'd be interesting if you could speak to your workforce.

- Yes so with our speech assessment, we all attended some speech training through our local allied health providers. And they ran us through the assessment sheets that we have from them, which they've come up with and it's kind of a tick box, but it is a session that you might actually do with a speechie that would assess your child. So we're trained in that from the specialists so that we can see what red flags we had. We also, with our occupational therapists we had some money. So we developed a checklist for them to similar to what we do for speech. So it's kind of a tick box thing again, but it just raises any red flags that tell us whether we need to do a further referral or whether it's something we can work on in the preschool. We've also added lots of different specialists to come in and train us, I suppose, with red flags. So we had Umbo, who's an online delivery service, come into the preschool to train us on what red flags they would look for and what they could deliver online and what they couldn't. We've had a finger gym program come in, which was again through allied health. They came in and did the sessions with the kids, but our people were there. So the hands on training is the best that I've come across. And it gives you a baseline to start from so that your staff understand that. And then we just transfer that knowledge from our old staff members, I suppose you would say to any new staff members that come in.

- Thanks so much, that's really helpful. Now, we had a bunch of questions that hopefully many, many were answered in the chat, but just to give you a flavour, as I look through, there's a number of questions about people wanting sort of access to this presentation and next steps. So we'll cover next steps in a few minutes and Mady will speak to that, but yes, this session is being recorded and there'll be information available on our website. So please feel free to dip in and share with anyone in your services and anyone in your networks. We've had a couple of questions. This is a really good question about why specifically focusing on four year olds. And look, I need to be careful because money doesn't grow on trees, but certainly I think there's really exciting and important opportunities to consider about health and developmental checks and getting the systems right for all age groups, but why the government has made the commitment to four year olds is that we know that the great majority of four year olds are getting some form of early childhood education. And so we've got this potentially captured audience in the best possible way in terms of them having that positive experience in early childhood. In addition to that, we know that that's the time when the developmental checks through childhood maternal health or GPs really drop off. And any of you that are mums or dads on the line also know that particularly if it's your second or your third child, your diligence about following up on those things might have just wavered by having busy lives. So we are conscious that when you've got toddlers and you're not in that newborn phase of the first six weeks, and you've got all of that wraparound support that often happens both universaly for vulnerable families. We do see that real drop off. So we're starting with the four year olds, but we don't think that we won't learn some things about three year old interventions, for example, or how to think about this in terms of those system integrations with health and early childhood services going forward. So that's a great question. We also had some questions in the chat about the challenges often being not about the developmental checks, but what happens next in terms of access to speechies and OTs. And we absolutely hear that loud and clear. So I think some of the examples we heard from Amy, Cathryn and today are there might be some opportunities for some other things to be attached and that we might be able to think about those things as part of our rollout or different models for health and developmental checks. But certainly we also have to be clear that we do have workforce challenges, particularly in regional and rural communities for those allied health professionals, similar challenges in lots of ways for early childhood educators and teachers. So we won't be able to wave the magic wand about that, but that's why we think the deep buy in of early childhood educators and teachers is so important because there's many things in terms of that sort of support and the teaching and learning practices that can assist a child and can assist a family at the same time as if they're having to pursue other avenues and hopefully not on too long a waiting list. Mady, were there any other ones in the chat that you thought it was worth calling out and giving some responses on?

- [Mady] Yes. I actually thought there was a couple on NDIS providers. So maybe, what's the difference that NDIS has made for you, Amy and Cathryn, would that be useful for, there were quite a few on that aspect.

- Yes go for it Amy.

- Yes, look, I wouldn't rush into becoming NDIS providers. And that is absolutely not what I'm here to promote. It was just a pathway we went down because we did have access. We had a mainstream program, firstly, with our OTs and speech therapists, because we wanted to make that more accepting in our community that OTs and speech therapists were part of the education pathway and part of what we did with children, if we were identifying that they weren't tracking typically. So yes, NDIS is a huge, huge task to take on. Absolutely fabulous. And it's a great wraparound service for us, but I don't think that we all need to be rushing out and becoming NDIS providers as an attachment of our services. That's a pathway we've gone down, but I'm absolutely happy to talk to anyone about it more if they wanted to. But yes, it was more about us getting therapists into our service and I acknowledge how hard that is. And that was just a transition we made over many years.

- Yes thanks Amy. That's really good to hear. And I think we also, so thank you. There's other people that have popped in and helped in the chat as well. So there were a few questions about just being really clear on what the blue book actually covers currently. So what we will do actually, and thank you, Tania, and I know someone else popped in the links. We might actually distribute out to this email list or I've got my Daniel, my comms colleague here. We might think about doing an EDM. That's just about a bit more about those links and that information flow about what's currently covered in the blue book. Really interesting reference, sorry, I forget your name. Someone whose services on the border and are using the Victorian one. So that's just another issue for us to think about in terms of implementation of some of the differences for border communities. And someone asked a question which Daniel answered, but I've just got a little bit of extra information on, which is how is the AEDC, the Australian early development census collected. So I think Daniel might have thought you were asking about the dev checks, but the AEDC is actually collected in schools. It has almost 100% uptake. It's backed by really significant research program by university statisticians and social policy experts. But the actual undertaking of the AEDC is done by school teachers in that kinder year. So it helps kind of establish it's only every three years, but it's a really important resource longitudinally about where children are at when they start school. One of the interesting things is what are our opportunities to get a sense of where children are earlier than that in terms of before they maybe start preschool or as they go into a preschool type program in any of our service types. So that's how the AEDC is done. If you've got a kinder kid from last year, they would've done AEDC then, but it's really important rich information. And one of the things we can give you a link to is you can dive into the data on that site. They do it at state levels and by the different domains, it's not perfect. There's always ways of improving, but it's a really interesting, it's got domains about physical, emotional pre-literacy domains as well. So it's a pretty important resource for all.

- [Mady] Gill to add to that is actually community level data. And your school should have access to, your local school should have access to their local data. And we've encouraged people in and this happens in some communities where the local school would engage with the EC services in their radius and try and work out how they can work better together to enable a better transition for children to recognize children who may have developmental delays and be able to support them from day one term one. So if you want to learn more about that, maybe reach out to the local schools and see if you can start building a community around that. That'll be great. You're on mute Gill.

- Doing the mute thing again. I think it might be useful now, Mady for you to talk about next steps, which I think answers some other questions in the chat as well. So if we could go to that.

- Thank you. Okay well you've seen the number of people we've engaged with and how many of the 4,100 services that are qualified to be included in this work, which is really nothing. We've only just touched, skipped the surface. So we've the next step for us is to really expand that circle of engagement. And that's why this survey and this session today is so important because we hear about all the good work that's happening. And we need to know about this to be able to inform what we do next and how we work with things that are already in place. So we'll do this. And as you said, Gill we have a very deep focus and priority on Aboriginal communities and making things culturally appropriate. And for Aboriginal communities, as well as our multicultural communities and families. From this, and almost in parallel, we'll do a deep dive with some of the services that we are collecting as part of this exercise to really look at what the models are, what they're using, how they're engaging with families. So really kind of unpack what that model looks like on the ground. We've also as part of the two workshops that we did a couple of weeks ago, we've uncovered a lot of quick wins, a lot of really great opportunities that we can already start acting on to create additional capacity for IC services in our health services and also to kind of as a precursor of that engagement, how can we already bring these two communities together? So that'll be a priority to start with, and then obviously work our way towards sustainable frameworks and systems. So we want to build something that last, we heard a lot about continuity of funding and not being able to rely on people. So we want to make sure that this is here to stay and we can support families service, EC services and children for the long run. So I think that's kind of big picture what we are doing next. If you want to get in touch again, have a look at the survey. That's how we are collecting your details and we'll be in touch with you after this.

- Fabulous. Okay well, thanks, Mady. And I hope everyone has found today useful. We've answered 57 questions in the chat. We've got some more that we didn't quite get to. So as I mentioned, we'll try and pop a few more answers into those. And as we said, keep in touch. We're incredibly excited about the opportunities here to put the child at the centre, to really work in a powerful way with early childhood services and health professionals. I wanna emphasize that we are very conscious of not increasing the burden on services and at some powerful reminders in the chat about burnout and wellbeing risk of early childhood educators at the moment. So we are really conscious of this across all of the early years commitment work that we are doing, which is it is so unbelievably exciting that we have such sustained government investment and such interest at the Commonwealth and state level about the value of early childhood education. But with that attention comes new initiatives and new things. And so we've gotta make sure that we implement those and collaborate in ways that support your practice, support the day to day work and give you that enthusiasm and that boost as opposed to being just another thing on the to-do list. So we won't always get that perfectly right, but forums like this and our deep dives are the way to keep calibrating. And our approach on doing this work is to make sure we don't wave the magic wand or say one size fits all. But think about service context, think about the interactions with other things that you're doing, but try and get to the point where basically every child in New South Wales walks through a school gate, having at least had their health and developmental checks and at best had the referrals and the support that they need. So thank you very much everyone, have a wonderful random public holiday tomorrow, which is either a gift or another frustration, depending on your life perspective, but a different Thursday for many of us. Thanks so much for joining us and thanks to the team for all of the work and our wonderful guest speakers. Cheers, all.

- [Kate] Welcome to everybody who's joining us today for the Transition to School: The Digital Statement, what it is and how you can make it work for your service and families. We're just waiting for people to join us. We've got quite a few people joining us today, so we'll give it a few minutes and then we'll get started. Good morning everyone. I can see we've still got a few people joining us, so we'll just give it a minute or so more and then we'll get started. Okay, good morning everyone. I can see the numbers are still going up, but it is 10:02 and we've got a lot to get through today. so we'll get started. Welcome to today's session, which is Transition to School: The Digital Statement, what is it and how can you make it work for your service and families. Very pleased to have everyone here today. I'm going to begin with an acknowledgement of country. We've got a short video to play for you which has been prepared by some children from Toukley, a preschool in Toukley. which I'm just about to play for you. Okay, wonderful. And with that I'd just like to go into a bit of housekeeping. As you'll have noticed, the microphone, video, and chat functions will be disabled during the presentation. You can ask us questions in the Q&A section, which is at the bottom of your screen. We will be using Menti during this session, so if you can have a device handy, we'll get you to scan a QR code or go to a website address and enter a code. And this session is being recorded and will be made available. I'm now going to hand over to Linda Augusto who manages our transition to school program. Thanks Linda.

- Thanks Kate. Hi everyone. I'm Linda and I'm a Wajarri woman. So before we get started, I to wanna acknowledge the lands that we're all on and today I come from come to you from Duray country, which is very, very close to the Georges River where our aboriginal people have fished and used the river to resource us and sustain life, before, well and still do today. I was going say before us, but still do today. I also would just like to acknowledge the ancestors that are here with us and with you guys and hope that that gives us a successful transition to school statement session today, while they're sitting with us. I'm an early childhood teacher. I've worked in the profession since I was 17 and yes, that means a very long time. Some of my colleagues will be on this call today. So I just want to say hi to those of you who I have worked with, but I also want to acknowledge all of you as early childhood education and care professionals and the work that you do. I'm going to try and say this without getting emotional because those of you who know me, know I'm a crier. But I do want to say that the work that you do every day and the work of early childhood professionals is incredibly valuable and it's such heart work as in, from our heart as well as being very hard work. But what I did want to say is I know for myself, I still carry every single one of those little children I've worked with in my heart with me today and think of them often. And what a difference they, that you are making to their life. And I know that they make to yours. I'm also acknowledging that it's tough right now and that we know that here in the department and my colleagues here in the department are very supportive of the work that happens and very, hold a lot of admiration for all of you, and the work that you're doing, when you show up every day. And there is a deep respect from me and for the work of the profession, in the work that we do here at the department. I just really want to acknowledge that and say thank you from me and my colleagues. Not just on the call today, but in the wider department for the amazing things that you do. Okay, let's get started. So in this session we are going to provide an overview of the transition to school statement and share what's new. We're going to go through some common facts from questions that arise regularly around the statement. We're going to go through a guide and I'll take you through a guide to completing the statement. We're going to share some stories from an early childhood education and care service, who's been part of a pilot that has happened here for transition to school digital statement from the very beginning. We're also going to hear from our digital team who are going to do a demonstration for us. And at the end, if time permits, we'll have a live question and answer session as well. Because we've no doubt there'll be some questions that arise. I also just want to acknowledge that, I was going to say something , there and I've forgotten, oh if, if when we start going through, if there's questions that arise for you or things that you want us to spend a little bit more time on or you feel like we haven't actually answered something that you really need to know, just pop it in the chat and my colleagues are there waiting for those and will let me know. Okay, so let's move to the next slide. The transition to school statement is an opportunity for early childhood professionals to share their knowledge of the, of a child's learning, and their development, and a picture of who they are. And so this is shared and, and collated with families and is sent off to schools. It also is designed to give the child a voice in their transition experience and to help link the EYLF to the early stage one syllables, syllabus. So for teachers that is important as well. That's the feedback that we've received from them. To get started, we're going to do a Menti. So we'll go to the next slide and I'll get you all to get your phones ready. So if you can scan the QR code, we're conducting a poll to find out what organisation you're joining us from today. And this will be shown on the screen, so you can all get a bit of a sense of who's here and who our colleagues are that are with us. So I'll give you some time to scan this or if you're on a computer you can go to menti.com and enter the code, which has just been put in the chat. We've got lots of early childhood professionals, which is amazing. I can see we have some school counterparts, government department people here today, which means my colleagues are watching me. peak bodies and not-for-profit corporate. This is fantastic. I can still see it going up, so we'll give it a few more minutes, but it's really helpful for me to know who's joining us, so that I can make sure I answer questions, that suit the needs of the audience. I'm also just saying we had a thousand people register for today, so I'm slightly terrified. I think this is the biggest group I've ever had to present to, but I'll do my best. All right, so it looks like, which we did expect, that most of our participants are from early childhood services today. So welcome, really pleased to have you and to all of our other counterparts that are here as well. All right, let's move on to the next slide. So the department's role in transition to school is that we want to ensure that every child is supported to have a positive transition. And we want to be able to support early childhood education, and care services, and schools, to get the best information possible that is needed. So our main purpose is to ensure that services are ready to assist children and support them in their transition, and that schools are ready for children. But in that process, we're engaging early childhood educators, teachers, primary school teachers, parents, carers, and families to share that information together, and work together for the benefit of the child's transition. Research tells us that children who make a smooth transition maintain higher levels of social competence and academic achievement throughout their lives. Initial success in transition, transitioning to a new school environment can lead to students that develop long term, positive attitudes towards learning and it positively influences their wellbeing later in life. So again, thank you for your contribution to that. Okay, next slide. So by digitising the transition to school statement, it makes the process a smoother process and early childhood education and care professionals complete the transition to school statement. This happens online, the statement is then confirmed at the service level, read by families, and sent through so that schools can access this, their primary school that the child is transitioning to. It aligns to the early years learning framework and captures a child's developmental progress. The benefits that we know are for children and communities, and this is for continuity of learning. That it outlines developmental outcomes for children, that it's a work in partnership with families and communities, and that there's transparency of information sharing because we know how important it is that families, services, and schools work together to share that information. There's benefits for early childhood teachers and educators in that it lifts the professional identity of early childhood education and care professionals. We know what great work happens now and how important it is for us to share that work. There is one central location to create, view, and send statements, it's secure storage and access. It also gives access to previously created statements. It's time saving and we hope that it will reduce administration. The benefits for school teachers is that it's a more efficient and reliable way to receive statements, that it's an increase of information sharing and improves communication between early childhood education, and care services, and schools. And again, that it's time saving and reduces admin burden. Next slide. So this has been the journey for us so far. Just to let you know that in 2020 we started with a pilot, where there were 31 early childhood education and care services involved and 504 digital statements were completed. This then was increased in 2021, where we had 347 services participate and 5,000 digital statements completed. And this year we're rolling out the transition to school digital statement to all early childhood education and care services to use. And at last count, maybe someone's going to need to text me that information, but I'm pretty sure we were sitting around 7,000 statements, which is looking fantastic, so thank you. What we do know is that there are 100,000 children who are anticipated to transition to school every year. And so we hope in the next few years or next year, to reach that number of statements going across to schools. We've received some extensive feedback and had some consultation with some really amazing services that have given us some really great advice and have guided the statement, as well as our department colleagues. I do want to acknowledge the pilot services that have worked with the department for the last two years to refine the transition to school statement in the current form that it is today and to also thank those people, especially if they're on the call today for persisting with some of the challenges that we've had and some of the kinks that we needed to get sorted before we released the statement out to everybody. Next slide. We've got another Menti for you and what we are keen to find out is who has used the transition to school statement, which will help me in the next section of this presentation. So again, scanning the QR code or putting in the, the code. Okay, so we've got more people who haven't, than have, so this is really good for me to know when I'm going through the next part. And we hope that after today you will. And, either, or, there's no right or wrong answer, it's just useful for us to know. Okay, thank you. So I'm going to go through some common facts now. We have, as I mentioned to you, we've had lots of conversations with our pilot services but also have met with some peak organisations and with some transition to school networking groups. So we know the kind of questions and comments that come through and we are going to address some of those early on now, and I'm going to talk to you about some of the answers for that so that they don't get in the way of us being able to have the next part of the conversation. So we thought it was a good time to address some of these common questions that arise. So who can access the transition to school statement? Currently, community-based preschools, department of education preschools, long daycare services, and government schools can access the transition to school statement. We very much value the contribution that family day care, playgroups, and non-government schools, allied health, distance early childhood education, and care services contribute to the education of young children. We know that you can't currently access the statement in the form that it is in and it's not because we don't value the contribution that you make towards that child's education journey. I'm going to explain to you why, currently, you can't access the statement and what we are doing to try and find a solution for that. So as most services will know, and I'm going to try and not spend too long explaining this, but each provider of early childhood education and care, has a SE number or a service number. And so that's the license provider that has that number, which often from a service perspective when we fill documents in, that's the one that we have to grab and I can never remember or I left mine, when I worked in preschool, but it's there somewhere. So that service number is what your email is linked to for the service. So in a service based environment, it means that the service registers for a transition to school statement process and the director signs up the teachers and educators in order to be able to complete the transition to school statement. For family daycare for example, the family daycare provider has the SE number, so they also get the email. But it means that there's multiple carers that are working with that provider in the households that are working to educate young children. So what it would mean is that we can only, because there's only that one SE number, it means that each family daycarer would need to or would be classed like a service in that each educator would be able to see the transition to school statements for all children, in all the different households for family daycare. And we would be worried about privacy around that. So just to let you know, we are working with providers in family daycare with some providers who are helping us find solutions to that, and we do actually have some ideas, and we're working with our digital colleagues to try and get that to happen. So for, we're very close to finding the solution for family daycare. In relation to playgroup or even for distance early childhood education and care services. We're still on the journey of finding a solution for that and we're, we're hoping that through the process of trying to solve this for family daycare services, we'll also find the solution for these areas. But also we've had some groups reach out to us and are working with those networking groups where there's representatives from people across the range of those service types and those supports for children that are trying to help us to resolve that. So in the future it's coming, we just need to find a way to make it happen and we'll get there. So please don't feel worried. We definitely are on the case. In relation to government schools being able to access the transition to school statement and non-government schools not being able to, I'm going to address that question as we go. So let me get to that one. The next question, who will use and complete the transition, the completed transition to school statement. So we know that school, teaching, school staff and teaching staff use the transition to school statement to inform classes and to get to know the children that are coming into their space. We're very aware there is some worry held by early childhood education and care teachers, that school teachers are not reading the transition to school statement. Here is what I would say to that. We know that early childhood education and care is unique and incredibly valuable and we bring amazing perspectives about children who are heading off to school. By completing the statement, we are sharing that valuable knowledge that we hold for each child with a school. Here in the department, it's our job to work with our school counterparts to keep promoting the statement and to ensure that schools and teachers are engaging with it. What I can tell you, is we've already begun that work and there is not a teacher that I've spoken to or a corporate representatives from schools, who is not highly impressed by the statement, what it can do, and has not noted how valuable that is for them in their work, over in schools. So we are just continuing to work with schools to ensure that the word is getting out. But the other thing is that through your partnerships that you have with local schools, it's a really good way to promote the use of the transition to school statement and that the statement will be coming. But also as part of the system, the transition to school statement when it is completed and sent through to a school, actually pings the school to let them know that the statement's sitting there waiting to be read. And so if that isn't necessarily picked up initially, a reminder email will be sent to school. So once there are more statements completed, once this process happens more and more, the transition to school statement and the process will become more widely known. So what I, I guess I'm saying to you is don't give up, let's keep going, because this is really, in the early stages and the more that people begin to learn about the statement and know about it and the more engagement that school has, the more value is held with what is coming across. I think that we'll find that those numbers will start to increase. The next one is how long does it take to complete a transition to school statement? So obviously this varies. The statement is designed to use information collected in your practice through observations, through family conversations, through all about me sheets, through family input, through enrollment forms. So we don't want this or expect this to be different to the work that you are doing. It is obviously going to be unique to the child and the family service context, in particular if you have children who have an additional need, who you will need to spend a longer time supporting that family through making decisions about transition. So it's going to look different and it's designed to do that. But generally the statement is designed to use the information that you do in your daily work to bring it into one space so that it can be shared easily. Our most recent feedback in particular from the pilot services is that this version of the statement is the most aligned to practice that is happening in early childhood education and care on a daily basis. So we have intentionally worked on that to ensure that you get something that is useful and usable and we continue to look forward to the feedback that you are giving us about this. Because this is not a tool for the department, this is not a, not a tool for anybody else other than you as early childhood professionals to complete and to share information with schools. Also, I do want to let you know, Martin's going to go through this later when he talks through the, the technicalities of what, what the transition to school statement looks like, is that school teachers actually get a different dashboard to what early childhood education and care teachers do and can engage with certain elements of the statement. So it might be that they look at the developmental area first or at the suggestions for future planning and then they can go back at other times and pull out other pieces of information from the statement. So it's designed from, for schools to be versatile in that way, that all of that information can be filtered through to get what's needed immediately. All right, next slide. Sorry, I talk too much too, so please, my colleagues who are listening tell me to be quiet. It's when I get excited. Okay, so next slide is the next question is, how is the transition to school statement shared with interstate and non-government schools? So currently it's completed digitally, so it completed the same way. And what we recommend is that you save a PDF and it can be emailed through to a non-government school or to an interstate school or it can be printed off and shared with the family and they can hand it to a school. So there are a couple of options there. In the future we are again working with our non-government school counterparts to find a solution to, to this being done in a more streamlined way. But for now we would recommend that it's done through email or PDF sharing. And will the transition to school statement replace transition practices that are already happening in early childhood education and care services? The answer is absolutely not. The digital statement is one part of and one tool to assist the transition practices. It's an information sharing and as I've talked about before, through your documentation processes, there is already a developmental summary that would exist somewhere in the practices that you have. And so it is meant and designed so that that information can be put straight into the transition to school statement, before it's sent off to schools. Your other transition practices such as your partnerships with schools, visits, the learning experiences your planning and your educational program information sessions that you're having in the community and with families, all of those things will happen at your local level in a way that suits you. But the statement is one part of the process of information sharing across the schools to make sure that we're sharing that really amazing work that we do here in early childhood education and care. Okay, next part, let's dig down into the nitty gritty. So I'm going to take you through a guide to completing the transition to school statement. Again, this guide was developed to be a practical tool. If you can move to the next slide guys and we'll bring up a QR code for people who haven't seen this. So this is something that I used in the work that I've done before to either support early childhood professionals in creating developmental summaries and, and pulling together information about a child. I actually used this myself when I was teaching in a preschool and completing developmental summaries for children before they headed off to school. And so really it is created to be the most practical and useful tool for you. It's also to help educational leaders and directors to work with teams. We know that people who are filling out the transition to school statement may have 50 years experience. They also may be straight out of uni and have one year experience and are feeling a bit nervous because it might be their first time. So this is meant to support either end of the scale with some information that might be useful for you. So you can use the QR code to access it here. There's also, it's also available on our web pages and in the Q&A section, my colleagues are going to put the links in for that. Again, we are really mindful that the work that you're are doing out there is for you, and for families, and for children. And this tool needs to work for you. So if you have any feedback at all in the, at the, in our last slide, we're going to give you ways to contact us. But we really want to know, we want you to come back and say to us, well this was not helpful at all or this has been really helpful for us. Can you add in X, Y, and Z? So these tools, the statement itself, is for the profession, it's not for us, it's for you guys to work to support children and families and to support schools in that sharing of information. So please let us know what needs to happen to improve it. All right, so let's talk about the next slide. So I'm actually, you can see the images on the right, on the right hand side is the guide, and it takes us through the questions to the transition that, that are in the transition to school statement. So the first section of the statement really is about family, and cultural context, and languages spoken. This information is comes from the normal processes and interactions that you have with families. So whether it's through discussions, enrolment forms, whether you do a specific all about me sheet, or a you know, who am I sheet with children, whether it's conversations that you have and you've taken notes, or whether it's observations that you've made, your family connections and those important relationships that you have, are what is going to guide this part of the transition to school statement. Some services have chosen to actually create a sheet and let families know separately that they're sharing this information in the transition to school statement, I would say as part of your normal processes, that it would be something that you, you will talk about families, you will talk about with families, so that they know that this information will be shared. But really there's nothing in there that is top secret. It's more about things, you know, things that are general about that child and important to know in the family context. Also in that is whether or not the child identifies as Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander, which is incredibly important and from feedback for us, part of the updates that have happened this year is to make sure that we note down what lands and community the child is connected to. Because that's incredibly important for our community and our kids. Okay, next slide. So in this part is who the child connects, who, who the child is, how they're connected to family, community, culture, and place. So this is where you would put in a brief summary about that child. So I've just read you here a little example is that you might say something like, Linda lives at home with her brother Charlie and her mom. She spends every second weekend with her dad and has strong connections with her extended family, including her great grandparents on both sides. Or it might say something like her extended family lives overseas. They're still connected to her through weekly FaceTime conversations and contributing to her early years education through sharing stories on Story Park. So little bits and pieces like that. This is where the quirky information about who that child is and how they fit in their family context and community is really important. And I would also say that in particular for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, it might say something there like, is deeply connected to her extended family and that her grandmother is regularly involved in decision making with the parents, along with the parents, as part of that child's educational journey, might be an example. This also, this section would share information about where the child might need additional supports. And that has also been updated this year because we're very aware that there's lots of different things impacting on children, particularly after COVID. So this isn't just relating to a diagnosed disability. It could have something to do with supports needed for self-regulation. If a child is experiencing anxiety, if they need support with separation, or that there might be some trauma background information there that is important to share for the to, to the school so that they're aware of what supports might be needed. Okay, next slide. So this part is to ensure that we're able to capture and share the child's voice, and feelings, and expectations about school. This is not a section where you would interview the child, where you'd pull them into the staffroom while you're completing the statement and say things like, tell me how you feel about going to school. This is through your natural normal organic conversations that you're having with children, in groups of children, whether that's at group time, whether that's through observations, whether it's through role plays that are happening in the service, whether it's through conversations with families. This has also been updated to reflect that we're very aware that some children won't be able to share with you how they're feeling, whether it's about their own communication needs and abilities, but there's also going to be some children who have an additional need and may require support with communication. And so this is where it's really important that that collaborative process between the family, child, educators, and other professionals supporting that child comes in and that you're able to, to include that information from a collection of information that's come through to you that can be shared with the school from all those valuable people. Next slide. So this is the area where we begin to include the child's learning and development. It has been designed as a holistic view of the child and is based on the early years learning framework. So each section, where you're putting in your developmental information and the learning information aligns with each early years learning framework and the sub-outcomes within that framework. In this section you'll see that there is an opportunity for you to put a little bit of a, a scale against each one of those sub-outcomes. And that might be where you choose to stop, at that information. You don't necessarily have to add information into the summary section. However, in order for us to share that valuable information that you are collecting throughout the year with your observations and documentation, we would recommend that you put a brief summary in there of each child, sorry, of each learning outcome, that is there. So you, you might comment on the child's development, their preferences, their learning styles, their abilities, and what intentional teaching strategies, and future planning opportunities that you are thinking for that child. So what is it that you do to support that child currently? What are some teaching strategies that you know work and what are some things that school might wanna think about to support that child in the future? Where are they headed? Because imagine us holding that information if when a child enrols into our service, we are given a little bit of a handover of that information of the best way that we can support the child. And we know that in early childhood, you guys are the ones who hold that amazing knowledge. So this is obviously again where you would pull from the documentation that you do. Some services do a mid-year summary and add to it or update it as the year progresses. So that might be where you grab this from as well. In there are also support, oh no, that's okay, I'll talk about that in the next slide. It's your choice, as I said, how much or how little you include in this section. You might put a few dot points or you might put a significant summary, that's up to you and that's up to the time that you have. But remember it's the child who benefits from the teacher knowing this information, knowing who they are and knowing what they bring into the classroom and to their new school environment. Next slide. So this section was designed as a support and I'm going to say I know this is not perfect. I know there's going to be a million people out there who say, why have they used those wordings or why have they said that or why didn't they just use the EYLF developmental areas? And we did, we actually used all of that to bring it into one document, so that you had one place where you could go to this document, make notes all over it, add your thoughts in it, add more information. So it's not meant to be an exhaustive or a complete list, but it is meant to be somewhere for you guys to start, where you can pull some of those dot points in to pad out your summary. And it just makes it a little bit more, I guess, handy for you to have a document here to, to support you to build this information. So it lists the developmental analysis descriptors to interpret and complete the questions on each outcome. And we've actually separated that out in outcomes for you in that support document. But one thing to keep in mind, it was really tricky, let me tell you, is that some of those indicators obviously crossover into more than one outcome. So you, we've tried what we can to, to capture that, but of course you guys will need to work on that and make it your own. It's linked to also to the general capabilities. So each outcome there, we've linked to the general capabilities from the Australian curriculum, that relates to each outcome area. So for this specific outcome, for learning outcome one, it relates to personal and social capabilities. And so we've made sure we've included that in there. So it, it helps with just thinking about what schools might be looking for within this outcome. An example I've given you of one of these developmental indicators and I, one of the reasons that we have included this to support the work that you are doing is, it can sometimes be really tricky for us to share information about a child where they might not quite be reaching their potential for that learning outcome. And so some of the wording that we've included there to support that is instead of saying something like, gives up and won't complete something that's challenging, one of the indicators there or the language that we've used around that is that, it might be that Sheree benefits from support from a trusted adult to persist with completing a task. It sounds so much friendlier, it sounds so much nicer. It's from a, the perspective of a family reading that as opposed to reading something written in a deficit is really important for us to, for parents to feel great about their child when they're moving off. And also a really good way for them to connect to things that the child is working on, things that a child is improving and also, where they might be able to fit in to do that. So that's also one of the reasons that we've shared this information and document with you is to support you with some of that wording where things can be a little bit tricky as well. So we hope that this in particularly is really helpful for you in your work. Again, as I've mentioned, please let us know if there's any ways that you think this can be improved. It is really meant to be a practical tool that you can pick up and use straight away and that educational leaders and directors and other support staff in early childhood education and care services can grab, in your daily work. We want to make life easy, not more difficult for you. I am now done and thankfully going to take a breath and we are going to share a little snippet of a video for Midson, from Midson Road Early Childhood Education and Care service, who have worked on the pilot with us and shared some of their journey from being part of the pilot and using the transition to school statement in their work. And thank you so much for listening.

- Hi, I'm Linda from the Department of Education and I'm here with Mel from Midson Road Childcare Center to talk about transition to school. Mel, do you want to talk to us a little bit about your role?

- Absolutely. I'm the educational leader and the director of Midson Road Childcare Center. I've been the director for the last 25 years, so since the center opened. So it's been a long time that we've been working with transition to school and each year we get quite excited at new prospects and new innovations.

- So tell us a little bit about your experience with transition to school statement.

- Absolutely, so we've always prepared some form of documentation to share our children's knowledge, and experience, and strengths, and areas that they might need some help with, with our local schools. We've worked hard to build up those relationships, so it's been lots of connections, lots of visits, inviting the schools in, and we just think it's really important that the schools have something to introduce each of our children as the individuals that they are. We find the transition to school document is really helpful because it's does give you that little bit of structure and you know, then sharing similar information that the other schools are sharing. So rather than getting off track or sharing information that might not be helpful, we find it's quite concise. It's similar to the information that we're already sharing with our families. So it's not a trouble for us to put together, it's not an extra workload. And it just flows into the transition to school statement quite easily.

- So you've been part of a trial with department of ed for how many years?

- I think the last two or three years. We're always excited to be a part of anything that's going to lead to growth or might streamline the practices or the processes. But also make it easier for the schools to get that information from us. So knowing that they're going to receive it digitally rather than us have to print it out, or rely on the families, or send the emails, we just find that we are looking forward to the opportunity to just press go and know that it's just going to get uploaded.

- So talk to us a bit more about the process of putting together the transition to school statement. What, what happens here in the service?

- Absolutely. It's a journey for us. So it doesn't just get picked up at the end, where we all panic and go, oh my goodness, we've got to prepare a document. We start back in term one, we already start the discussions around doing the research and the philosophy. We use the department's website. It's got so many interesting articles and, and the research to back up why we should be doing the transition to school statements. So I work with my early childhood teachers, but also anyone else in the center who's interested. I share all of this information across our whole team, because they always want to know what we are doing and why. So we complete an in-depth literature review, a deep dive, in term one and term two, to just understand the why. I don't think it's much point in study unless you know the why. Then we observe the children and continue to observe them. We do an analytical summary six months in anyway. So that's almost the same information that's going into the transition to school statement.

- And where do you pull that from?

- We pull that from the observations of the children, their work progress towards their goals, using their family's goals, using our observations. But we also use the developmental milestones. So we use the ASQ tool.

- So what I'm hearing from you is that it's actually part of your normal documentation process. Those analytical summaries that lead into the buildup of information you're gathering.

- Yes.

- About the child for the statement is part of what you would do, at the center.

- Absolutely. And that's across all age groups. So we write them from our babies all the way up. So it's not like it's a brand new document, it is already in place, it's embedded, it's a, it's a practice.

- That analytical.

- That analytical summaries. So it's very, very easy to continue that through and transfer the updated information. Because the children, they just continue to grow so much. So we begin in term three, the end of term three, we'll start to write ourselves a few notes, a few observations, but then we'll revisit them over the next few weeks before we start to set them in stone what we would like to share with the schools.

- What about things like families, and permissions, and getting some of the information that you need for the statement? Is that something that you get from the things that already exist in the service or are you asking specific questions of families throughout the year, how does that look?

- Being part of the trial group, we have found this year that we've had to be a little bit more systematic. In the past because we are looking at doing it digitally. So we needed to make sure we had the information that we needed for that. In the past we've always had no problems collecting the consent forms. But again, we keep our families very informed. So I also give them the why. So it's not just fill this form in. It's, we're so excited to be preparing your child's transition to school statement. These discussions start, we do term by term newsletters. Here's what we did this term, here's what's coming next term. We embedded that information in from the start of term one, term two, we revisit it in term three. So our families actually know already months and months in advance. It's not a surprise for them, but that's those honest and two-way conversations. The families are excited about the children starting school. Some of them are a little bit nervous, a lot of them are first time families. So they're very excited to get the information back. And again, we use the department's resources. So I always share the fact sheets, the information sheets, the research, the why, the what are we going to do with that information, where is it going to go? So we're not just writing it because we feel like it, we're writing it to help support your child as they transition to school. So we're very fortunate that our families are very, very open to getting involved with these sorts of things. But I think that's because we've prepared them months in advance. It's not a surprise and I think it needs to be a journey. It needs to be a two-way street.

- So, what do you think are the benefits of the transition to school statement?

- Absolutely, I think it's sharing the information about our children and what we know about our children with the schools. I think we all know that schools are slightly larger. So you know, our children are gonna go from a group of 20 to a cohort of up to a hundred depending on what school they go to. So how are we going to make sure that all those special little bits and pieces, and that includes some areas they might need some support in. How are we gonna get that information to the school, and to the teachers, and to the child's teachers, so that our children have the best possible start and the most positive start, to their next round of schooling.

- And in the process that you were talking to me about before, about what happens here at the service, you have a look at all the statements that educators and teachers complete.

- I do. I do. As the educational leader, I think it's really important that I'm checking the work that is, that is going out. We really value that information and so I like to make sure that I've reflected on it. That just means I can look at it with potentially a slightly different way, so that I can just tweak them and make sure the information is the best about the child.

- So Mel, tell me why you think it's important that, that we as early childhood professionals share information with schools in the transition to school statement like we do.

- Yes, I think it's all about elevating the profession. It's making those connections that what we are doing here in the early childhood years is so important and so crucial to set up that transition to school. If we weren't doing what we were doing and providing the successful steps, not every child would transition as smoothly as they do.

- Well tell me about what the, what the schools have said about the transition to school statement. Is that something they find valuable? Do you find all schools engage?

- I would say 70% of them definitely value it. We've still got the 30% that we're not sure if they read it. We don't get a lot of communication back. We've had to be okay with that. That's not us, that's the school and their processes. But it also means that we haven't stopped. So we still keep sending the emails, we make sure we print a copy of the statement, we email a copy of the statement. This year we're very excited to be digitally pressing go on the statement. I feel like if we just keep flooding them, they will eventually work out, that it's a really important document and that we're introducing each child as an individual. So we get to know these children so much, especially the ones who have been here since they're babies. We've spent half of their lifetime and then they're off to school. So we've got so much knowledge that we can share that we think it's really important. So we just don't give up. I think that's the most important thing.

- So why not? Because we, it would be really easy to say no one is reading them, it's not worth doing this statement.

- Easy to give up.

- Because there's a lot of work in those.

- There is a lot of work.

- Why do you not give up? Why?

- Absolutely because it's not fair on the children and it's not fair on their families. And I think a high percentage of them are beginning to value it more and more. I think with each year that's gone on, I do think that we are getting a lot better feedback and they're taking the time and they're asking for it in advance. So I think those last couple of schools that aren't quite sure, I think if we just keep going, we'll get them involved.

- Tell me a little bit about the design of the statement. It's set up under the EYLF outcomes.

- Yes.

- Does that work with what it is that happens in the service, through your documentation?

- It does for us. It's very smooth. It's very easy. The only thing that we have to think about, that's a little bit different, is collecting a nice piece of the child's artwork that they might like to share with the school. There's a question in there about that from the child's perspective. Other than that, if the information is what we were going to do in our analytical summaries anyway. So we've already done similar halfway through the year, we were going to do that anyway. That information just slides straight into the outcomes. It's very easy to use, it's very user friendly.

- And some of the information around culture and family language use, is that something that you would get from enrolment forms or do you have different processes as to where you would draw that from?

- We do get it in our enrolment forms. We also give families, little child profiles, that they submit and they update. This year, being part of the trial group, we've also asked our families those questions directly, so that their voice is represented back into the transition to school statement. So we could have gone and found it, but we also offered them the opportunity to give their perspectives if there's something more that they'd like to share. Because some of the enrollment forms were filled in a few years ago, things change or they might, families might want to have a different perspective put forward. So it was a great opportunity to connect with our families. Which we have lovely relationships with anyway. So it was very, very easy, to start collecting that information as well.

- So there's some of the, that's some of the pre-work that you were talking about before that you do.

- Some of the pre-work.

- Before the end of the year.

- Exactly, exactly. I think it's all about being a little bit systematic. I think, don't think that you could start at term four and not then feel like it is a little bit of work. But if you start thinking about the questions, open the document up, do your reflections, do your readings, you know what's coming, it's not a surprise. So we just did a little deep dive, worked out what questions we were going to need to ask, and we already had that planned weeks and weeks ago, so that when the time comes, it's just a transfer of information in. Rather than trying to write it on the spot. We definitely find that writing a draft first helps and then it goes through a few other teachers and then I read it. And that way it gets that quality control as well that we've been talking about.

- So it sounds like you've got a really clear process about the transition to school statement being completed, but all those steps throughout the year, all of those things happen to make sure that the, when it's statement time,

- Yes.

- That you're prepared and ready. That's exactly it.

- Hi, I'm Linda from the Department of Education

- Now we're going to hand over to my colleague for that.

- Good morning everyone. Thanks for your time this morning. So my name's Martin Dembeck. I'm the product owner and delivery lead, for the Transition to School Digital Statement. A little bit of background on myself. I've spent roughly a bit over 20 years within education, usually in a technical environment, both in Education Queensland and in New South Wales. So coming into this process has been pretty exciting and it's, it's quite a good project that we're running here. So what I'll be doing today is just walking everyone through the basics of the application. So the department has developed a digital version of the transition to school statement, as everyone's aware. The idea being to streamline the process for the statements to be sent to schools. So yourselves, early childhood teachers and educators can access the online platform and complete the transition to school statement and store it. And then you can send the statement to the school where the child will attend. And as part of this process as well, parental consent is obtained and the information provided to the intended school. So what we've found is that digitising the transition to school process has increased the utilisation of the transition to school statement and it's helped promote communication between families, early childhood services, and schools. And it's leading to more children being supported in their transition from preschool into the school environment. Now one of the asides as well, this is only very new information that's come through to us, but the transition to school digital statement application has just received a good design award. So it's an industry recognition for the design and the ease of use of the application and it, it really highlights the efforts that the team have gone into, into designing as much a user friendly application as we possibly can, to make everyone's lives easier. Okay, so let's dig in. So next slide. Thank you. Alrighty. So this is the transition to school's digital statement landing page. So you access this page via a DOE account and to gain that access, directors or a nominated supervisor need to create an account, verify your identity, and then you register the service. So the director can then create and manage accounts for the educators at the service who need to use TTSDS. And registration allows the authorized directors and educators to create, complete, and view the statements for their service. Okay, next slide please. Okay, so once a director has verified their identity and created a Department of Education account, then you must register the service with TTSDS. So on this page you can enter the service approval number or SE number and once you've done that, a pin number will be sent to the email address that was registered with NQAITS for the service. Now if you have any difficulties accessing that at that time though, you can resend the pin. It does last for about 60 minutes though, just in case you need that time, but can be recent, as I mentioned. Okay, so we'll jump onto the next page. Okay, so this is the actual service dashboard. So once you've logged on, this is where you'll land. So it displays the service account, sorry, the services that the account holder is linked to. And from here you can access both the educators dashboard and the statements dashboard. Okay, so we'll jump through to the next one. Okay, so here we can see the educators dashboard. So directors use this to create and manage educators linked to their service in the TTSDS. So directors can create an account for educators new to TTSDS, or you can link educators who have an existing account using the educator feature. So educators that are no longer at the service will also need to be removed from the educator dashboard. And that's also done through this page that you see here. Okay, so we'll jump to the next one. Okay, so this is the statements dashboard. So what this does is it displays a list of all the trans, a transition to school digital statements created at a service, for children transitioning to a school. So from here the statements are created, completed, and confirmed basically. So to create a new statement, you would just press the new statement button. You can also click on a child record to open any in progress statements and they'll be opened in edit mode. So you can work on them further if you need to. But completed statements are opened as a read only summary. Also from here, statements are stored securely in the TTSDS platform for seven years. So the advantage to this is it reduces the need for services to maintain backups as well. Okie dokie, we'll jump through to the next one. Okay, so creating a new statement. So to create the new statement, the child's details and parental consent must be entered. Currently digital parent consent is being piloted, with plans to make this an option for all services in 2023. The standard parent's consent method currently as, as some of you'll already be aware, is to upload the parents signed consent form, which is available from within the application. Okay, let's jump through next slide. Okay dokie, completing the statement. Okay, so TTSDS is divided into four sections to collect information about the child, their background, and their learning and development. And as Linda mentioned, it's aligned with the EYLF guidelines. So once all the information is filled in, a summary is for overview prior to confirming and sending the statement to the school. So you get to have a bit of a review of it. And as Linda has spoken in detail about the content of the statement, we, we don't have to dig too far into that right now, which is great. Okay, so we'll jump into the next, next one. Okay, so sharing the statement. Alrighty. So to support continuity of learning upon the transition to school, as you guys would be aware, this is really the driver of it. The statement is shared with the child's intended school. So if the child is going to a New South Wales public school, here is where you would enter the school details for the statement to be sent directly to that school. Schools can access the statement center then via the TTSDS schools dashboard. Okie dokie, so we'll jump to the next one. Okay. So, if the child is going to go to an independent school, Catholic school, or an out-of-state school for example, or if the school is currently unknown, when you are filling in the statement. You can indicate this and then you can manually share the statement with the parents and the school as required. Okay. Alrighty. So this is the TTS dashboard, that the New South Wales public schools see when their staff log on. So if you ever wonder what's happening on the other side of the fence, this is it. So using the dashboard, public schools can instantly access the statements sent to them by the services. The statements can be viewed online or downloaded, as required to then support their transition activities. Statements from previous transition periods can also be accessed at any time via the past cohorts tab. So they can always refer back to previous ones if they're required. And lastly, access for non-government schools. As mentioned, it's currently being looked at as a future enhancement for the platform. So we are continuing development of this application. It, it's quite, we're quite receptive to feedback and yes, this will be one of the things we're hoping to get stood up. Okay, so next slide. So, as with any IT product, technical support, So there is support available for all users of the transition to school digital statement. So the early childhood education directorate information and enquiries, that's a mouthful, but basically the I&E team available for support, via phone and email. There's also a comprehensive user guide, with FAQs available, and also support options are listed at the bottom of the TTSDS application pages. So they're pretty frequently available wherever you are in the system. Okie dokie. That's a very quick run through. Linda has covered off most of obviously what is involved in the content. So this is the actual how to with the statement. So what I'll do now is, we'll pass back over to Linda and we'll look at the Q&A side of things, I believe.

- Hi there. I've just been reading through lots of those questions. I am very, very mindful that we have taken up a lot of your time and that we are at time. I believe that's right, isn't it Martin, do you want to nod your head if I'm, we're at time.

- We are, literally bang on.

- Okay, so out of respect for your time in being here and I know that you will have allocated this time and had your relief time to attend. I don't want to spend too much time. Oh, oh I, we won't have time to answer the questions face to face. However I can see there's so many come through. So what we have put up here is ways to contact us. So there's a Yammer group and a Facebook page that you can join which shares information that's coming out about the statement, about pilots, about feedback groups, that are happening. So we would encourage you to sign up to these. Also, I know I can see that my colleagues have actually shared the email to the transition to school inbox, and we will be really happy for you to send through any questions that you are really wanting answered. I also know that there will be sheets available. Kate, you can nod at me or tell me yes, based on the questions that were asked in this session and shared out as well. What I do want to offer, I guess is something for, Emma and I will often get lots of emails where people are feeling a little bit wobbly about the statement or feeling really strongly about certain elements. And sorry, Emma is my colleague who works closely with me on transition to school and will often spend some time aiding through Zoom, talking through some of these questions and trying to find some solutions with services. So if you are really interested in having a session or for us following up with you at some point, really happy, again, use that email to get in touch and we may even organise to have, you know, some kind of group session or invite people to, to have a chat with us because this isn't meant to be something that's hard work. This isn't meant to be something extra. We want this to be something that can be done in the ordinary work that you do every day, in your ordinary part of your routine and practices. It's not meant to be super onerous. We know it's a shift. We know it's a change. We know it's tricky. I've been watching people talk about timeframes that it takes. So if it's taking that long, I think, you know, I, I know myself, I would spend between 30 minutes and an hour on every summary that I would send or complete for a child. So yes, that's standard. Yes, we know that happens. If you're really short for time, in particularly at the moment when under so much pressure. Maybe you don't put all of the information that you would like to in the statement and you send through a more brief summary at this point for this year. And that's okay too. So there's, you know, I'm certainly not saying that, that there are smooth, easy answers to all of these things, but we are really happy to have more conversation. Kate, I'm going to hand over to you to finish off, cause I'm continuing to ramble and get excited about the content. So thank you everybody for listening.

- Wonderful. Thank you to everyone who joined us today. This session was recorded and the video will be made available in the coming weeks once we've had the chance to, to caption it correctly. There will be a popup survey when you sign out. If you could please complete that for us. It gives us really valuable feedback on the roadshow sessions and what sessions you might find useful in the future. Thanks to our presenters today for a wonderful presentation and I hope everyone has a good afternoon. Thank you.

- Thanks everybody.

- Good morning to everyone who is joining. Thank you for making time for us today. We've got quite a few people joining us today, so we'll just give a few moments for everyone to join. Good morning, everyone who's joining. I can see the numbers are still going up. We're just on 10, so we'll just give it another minute for people to join and then we'll get started. All right, so we're just after 10 o'clock this morning, so I think it's about time to get started. Thank you, everyone, for joining our All About Allergens: Managing Anaphylaxis in Children's Education and Care session. We're very excited to have you all here today and we're also very excited to have our special guest, Sandra Vale, from the National Allergy Council here today to share some information with us all. Just before we get started, I'd like to begin by acknowledging country. We have a short video prepared with some children in the education and care service, so we'll get that one started now. Thank you.

- [All] We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky that covers aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for aboriginal land. We promise.

- And thank you to the preschoolers of Kooloora Preschool for their assistance in developing that acknowledgement. I, too, would just like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the country that I'm on today, the Dharug country, and pay my respects to elders past and present, and any aboriginal colleagues joining us today. Just a few things on housekeeping. You'll notice that the microphone, video, and chat functions will be disabled throughout the presentation. There is an option for you to ask us questions though through the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. You can also up-vote questions that you would really like to see answered by clicking the Like button. This will let us know which questions are the most popular so we can get to those first as time allows. We will be using Menti during this session, so if you can just have a device ready on hand so you can participate in the interactive elements of the presentation. And this session is not currently being... Oh, this session, sorry, is being recorded. Thank you for that one. Now, I'd just like to take this opportunity to introduce Sandra Vale from the National Allergy Council. Very, very excited to see Sandra on. I'm just going to ask Sandra to turn her camera on so that we can see and hear from Sandra.

- Hi, thank you, Kate. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me to present. If we can just go to my slide set. So I'm going to be talking to you today All About Allergens and managing anaphylaxis in children's education and care with a particular focus on managing food allergies, we know that's generally the most challenging allergy to manage in this setting. Next slide, please. The National Allergy Council is a partnership organization. We're a partnership between the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, or ASCIA, and Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia. And they're the peak medical and patient support organizations for allergy in Australia. The National Allergy Council. We were previously the National Allergy Strategy and we've changed our name to council because we are actually implementing the National Allergy Strategy. And the National Allergy Strategy is a blueprint that guides us to what needs to be done to improve allergy management in Australia and how we can achieve that. We develop a number of resources and when we do that, we do engage with all key stakeholders and we are consumer focused. So, in everything that we do, the consumer or the person living with allergy is at the center. So that helps guide us in terms of how we approach our work. Next slide, please. So just to give you an overview of what I'm going to cover today, talk a little bit about anaphylaxis, and is it actually an issue? What do we currently know about what's happening in the early children's education and care setting? Key areas of risk, and then I'm gonna talk a lot about the All About Allergens training and the resources that can help you to manage food allergies and the risk of anaphylaxis in your service. Next slide, please. So, what is anaphylaxis? It is the most severe form of allergic reaction. Not everybody who has a food allergy will have a life-threatening reaction, but some will. And the challenge is that we don't know with our current testing that's available for allergies, we don't know who is going to have a severe reaction and who's not. So, our clinicians generally make a best guess based on the testing available as to who's likely to be at risk. So we always have to be prepared that anyone who has a food allergy could potentially have a life-threatening reaction. Because it's such a rapid reaction and it does affect all body systems, it needs to be treated very quickly and adrenaline is the first-line treatment for anaphylaxis. It's usually given through an adrenaline autoinjector in the school and childcare setting. And once treatment has been given, the child does still need to be observed for at least four hours. So it is important that once you've treated a child, that you call an ambulance, and that they are taken to a hospital or the nearest medical facility to be managed and observed. And what's really important, again, is that we see the signs of an allergic reaction early. We recognize that it's anaphylaxis, if that's the case, and that we give that treatment as soon as we identify that it's an anaphylaxis. And that can be lifesaving by recognising it early and treating it appropriately. Next slide, please. So what are some of the common causes of anaphylaxis? So, food allergy, as I said, is the most common in this age. Children also can be allergic to insect, commonly bees or wasps and sometimes ants. And so they can have an anaphylaxis if they're stung or bitten. And medication allergy, again, not as common in young children, but some children do have medication allergies. And less commonly, allergies to latex. So you need to be aware of things like balloons that can contain latex or gloves. Sometimes just simply being cold if they go into cold water can trigger an anaphylaxis, and sometimes we actually just don't know what's causing their anaphylaxis and that is really hard to manage for the child, for the family, and also for the children's education care service. So, it's really important that any parent that tells you that their child is allergic to something, that there is medical confirmation of that allergy and that's usually through their ASCIA action plan. Next slide, please. So how common is food allergy in Australia? So Australia has one of the highest rates of food allergies in the world. We have 1 in 10 babies with a confirmed food allergy and that means that it's not just through blood tests or skin testing that they are positive for a food allergy, but they have actually had a food challenge where they've been given a small amount of the food and they've had a reaction. So that's what we call confirmed food allergy, and 1 in 12 to 25 preschoolers. We don't have the best data for food allergies or even anaphylaxis in Australia, and we're working hard to try and improve that. So the data for the preschoolers is a little bit less certain than it is in babies, but we know that some allergies tend to be lifelong. And so, while we have 1 in 10 babies with food allergy, many of those babies will continue to have their allergies into their preschool years and sometimes into their teen and adulthood. Next slide, please. So what are the most common causes of... or the foods that commonly cause food allergy? So, there's 10 foods in Australia that are most commonly associated with food allergy and that's sesame, wheat, the various tree nuts, milk, peanut, fish, egg, crustacea or shellfish, soy, lupin, and molluscs, so things such as oysters. But what's really important to note is that while these are the most common foods that people have a allergic reaction to, people can be allergic to any food. So, you might see some children that are allergic to peaches or watermelon or bananas, and they are true food allergies, and they can also result in anaphylaxis. So, again, if a parent comes to you and says their child is allergic to a food, it's really important that you do have the medical confirmation of that, so through their ASCIA action plan. But it is important that you take any food allergy seriously. Next slide, please. So while there's those 10 common food allergens, in young children, and this is data based on babies, so children up to one year of age, these are the most common allergies. And we all know about peanut, you know, we've been talking about peanut allergies for a long time, we hear about peanut allergies in the news a lot, a lot of deaths from food allergy have been caused by peanut, but it's really important, if you could just click for the next, thank you, and the next one as well, it's really important that we take notice that egg is actually the most common food allergy in babies followed by peanut and also by milk. So, it's not just about nuts in this setting in young children, it is very much about egg and milk as well. And they can be much harder allergies to manage in a children's education and care service, particularly cows milk. So, it is important that when you're looking at ways to manage food allergy in your service, you are not just focusing on the nuts. Next slide, please. So, what do we know about what's happening in children's education and care services in Australia? Next slide, please. We conducted a survey in 2021 and we actually had repeated this, this was a repeat survey, so we had conducted it on two previous occasions as well. But this is the results from the 2021 survey and this was conducted in October 2021. So we know that 89% of long daycare services have at least one child with a food allergy, and peanut, egg, and milk are the most common food allergies being managed in those services. Of those services that responded, 42% exclude foods when children with food allergies attend. So that means that on the day when there's a child with peanut allergy attending, they exclude peanuts from their menu. Or on the day that there's a child with milk allergy attending, they may be excluding milk from their menu. We also know that almost 14% report using lactose-free milk for dairy-allergic children. And this is quite concerning because lactose-free milk is suitable for children who have lactose intolerance. And a lactose intolerance relates to the sugar 'cause lactose is a sugar in milk, not a protein. When children are allergic to milk, they're allergic to the proteins in milk. So a lactose-free milk, which has removed the milk sugar or a type of milk sugar, is not going to be safe for a child with milk allergy. So, we potentially have an area of risk here. We also know that there are high levels of confidence, even though they're reporting low levels of training. And this is really concerning as well. It's almost one of the most dangerous situations because it's a case of you don't know what you don't know. And so, it's really important that we can get the message out that training is vital, food allergen management training as well as anaphylaxis training. So, two different types of training that need to be taken. Next slide, please. What else do we know? About 50% of services have had no staff complete All About Allergens training. And in 15% of the services that responded, only one staff member or at least one staff member had completed All About Allergens training. It was at least encouraging to see that 10%, so 1 in 10 services that completed the survey had required all of their staff to complete the All About Allergens training. And All About Allergens training, which I'll talk more about in a moment, is food allergen management training. So it's specifically looking at how you manage food allergies in the food service that you provide because that's what a childcare service is doing, it's providing a food service with the food that you are giving to the children, even if parents are providing food to the center, so every every child brings their own food, you still have to manage food allergies. And the All About Allergens training is still important to undertake because you have to manage the supervision of those children eating their food. And what also came clearly through this survey is that staff want clear policies and procedures to follow to help them manage food allergies and anaphylaxis, the risk of anaphylaxis, in the service that they're working. Next slide, please. So why is this a problem? Next slide, please. So, I'm just going to talk a little bit about risk management here. So, the Swiss Cheese Model, what it does is it highlights where, every day, things occur that might be a risk and lead to a child having an allergic reaction. But at some point in the lineup of events, something happens that stops that child either basically being exposed to a food that they're allergic to. And you can see with the Swiss Cheese Model there, that the holes in the cheese, when the holes all line up, that's when you have a problem because the risk is continuing to progress. There's no step along the way that's stopping that risk from progressing. And if you go to the next slide, please. The worst situation is when it goes all the way through, every step of the way where we could potentially stop that risk from occurring, goes all the way through and an incident occurs. And so, when we talk about risk management and having good policies and practices in place, we're talking about looking at every step of your activity in your service around food provision, around managing the risk of children with food allergies. What are the potential areas where a risk exists? And how can you stop that risk from progressing so that the child doesn't get exposed to something they're allergic to? And potentially, it could be a fatal reaction, that's the worst outcome and nobody wants that. But even if a child has an anaphylaxis and recovers, that's still very, very traumatic for the child, for that child's family, and also for the staff that work in the centre. So, it's really important that you do look at how you are managing each activity and where the risks are for children with food allergies or any allergy. Next slide, please. So the key areas of risk, you can click, yes, no policy or procedures in place. So, having no policy or procedures in place is obviously a risk because there's no guidance for staff about how to go about their daily work and how to manage those potential risk situations. Second to that is that there's a policy and procedure in place but nobody knows about it or nobody follows it. In addition, children at risk are not identified. So if you don't know who has an allergy, and particularly, a food allergy, then you can't put good risk minimisation strategies in place. Risk minimisation strategies, there's a whole range of strategies that need to be put in place, not just one. And certainly removing the food from the service is not an effective risk minimisation strategy on its own. And in many cases, we would actually say that it increases complacency rather than helps to manage the food allergy risk. So, if there's no good, effective risk minimisation strategies in place or they're not communicated, that poses a risk. If there's no emergency response plan, so nobody knows who does what and when they do it. When someone's having a reaction, that's not the time to work that stuff out. You need to do that in advance and you actually need to practice it. Like you practice fire drills, you need to practice your emergency response plans as well to make sure everybody knows what they're doing. Time is really important with anaphylaxis. The reactions happen very quickly and the sooner they get treated with adrenaline, the better chance they have having a good outcome. Inadequate staff training, and, of course, that's one of the things we're going to talk about today. So, as I mentioned, there's two different types of staff training. I'm going to focus on the All About Allergens training, which is about managing the provision of food and supervision of food. But anaphylaxis training is also important, and that's about how to recognize an allergic reaction and how to respond, but also how to prevent exposure. So looking at all of those different types of risk minimisation strategies that can be put into place. Next. Adrenaline injectors not being stored appropriately. So, this is part of your emergency response plan. People need to know where the adrenaline injectors are stored and they need to be easily accessible. And I know in the early children's education care setting, everything needs to be locked up, all the medications need to be locked up. But there is an exemption for adrenaline injectors because they are a first aid device, so they don't need to be locked away. And it's important that they're not because you need to be able to access them quickly. So, they need to be out of reach of children so that they're safe from that perspective, but they can't be under lock and key. And lack of communication and education is also an issue. So it's really important that you communicate within your children's education and care service. So talk to each other as a group of staff, but also communicate with your childcare community as well. Let people know that there are children at risk and what they're allergic to so that they can also support your risk minimisation strategies. And you can do that by having a good policy. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about lack of incident reporting and follow-up. So incident reporting is not about placing blame on anyone, it's actually important because that's how you learn about what happened and how you can improve things so that it doesn't happen again. So, incident reporting is really critical and that's where you can find all of those little steps that could have been changed to stop that Swiss Cheese risk of happening where the arrow goes right through. So, that's the importance of incident reporting and following up. Next slide, please. So now I'm going to talk about the All About Allergens course for children's education and care, and I think we had a Menti set up for this one. So, if you can jump onto that Menti and enter that code in there, and there's a couple of questions that we want you to answer. Okay, so this is the question. Have you heard of All About Allergens? So, the majority of you, from the looks of things, haven't heard about this course. So it's great that I'm here talking to you about it today so that you can find out more about it and how you can access it. And I will say it is a free online course, so, it is accessible for everybody who has access to the internet. So there we go. The next question is, have you already completed it? So this will be interesting because we've had around 60% say they haven't even heard of it. Nice to see that we've got some planning, too. Okay, and a small number of you have actually completed the course. Okay, that's great. Okay, so we've still got the majority who haven't completed, but a nice number of people there that are looking to complete it. Okay, so who is this course for? Well, it's for everybody, basically, working in the early children's education and care setting. So whether you're in long daycare, family daycare, preschool or kindy, outside school hours care, vacation and occasional care, or any other education care service, this course has been designed for this setting. We've designed it, we've piloted it with people working in children's education and care to get feedback and make sure that it meets the needs of this sector. So, it is really important. Why do we say that it's for everybody, it's not just the people preparing the food? Because in this setting, we are well aware that you have a cook or chef preparing the meals, but it's often they educators and teachers that are supervising the food. So that's really important that they understand about the risks of... with children eating food, the risks of cross-contamination, sharing food, making sure children get the right food, those sorts of things. So, and sometimes educators have to step in and cover for the cook or chef if they're off sick at the last minute. So, it is really important that everybody working in children's education and care complete this training. Next slide, please. So what's in the course? I'm just gonna go through the different units in the course to give you a little bit of an overview of what the course covers. So, the first unit is all about understanding food allergy and the consequences of serving the wrong food to a child, understanding the difference between food allergy and a food intolerance and celiac disease. And this is not to say that food intolerances or celiac disease are not important, they are and it is important that they are managed really well. But food allergy has a different level of risk because of the risk of an immediate, life-threatening allergic reaction. It's important to know what all the common food allergens are, but also as I said, the fact that any food can cause an allergic reaction. Being able to recognise the signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction and what action you should take, understanding the responsibilities of the child's parent and the staff and the service itself. So, when we talk about managing food allergies, we talk about it as being a shared responsibility. So the parents have responsibilities, they have to communicate their child's allergies, they need to provide you with an ASCIA action plan. They need to give you one of the child's adrenaline injectors if they've been prescribed, and any other medications. So, there are responsibilities of the family and they also need to be educating their child too in an age-appropriate way about how to manage their allergies. But staff and the service itself also have responsibilities, and we walk you through the different levels of responsibilities. And then also, applying tools to check food allergen management practices in your service. So we have developed some resources, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a moment, to help you make sure that your service has good practices in place to manage food allergies. Next slide, please. The second unit is all about communication and supervision for allergy management. So, it's looking at the importance of communicating with parents and staff about food allergies that your service is managing and how you can do that, and also, again, provides you with tools to support you, identifying common ways that young children might be exposed to foods that they're allergic to. So it's quite challenging in early children's education and care because children are very messy eaters at that age. They're not particularly good hand washers at that age either. So, you do need to be a little bit more vigilant in how you manage their allergies, their food allergies in particular. So, we talked you through all of that, I'll walk you through all of that. Identifying and implementing strategies in the workplace to ensure that the right meal or drink is given to the right child with the food allergies. So, you might be managing lots of special dietaries, it may not just be food allergies, like I said, there could be intolerances, there might be other special dietary needs such as cultural, special dietaries, whether they're vegetarian or vegan as well. So, it's really important that you have a good system in place to make sure that you are providing the child with a food allergy the right meal so that they're not accidentally getting someone else's food, which will lead to a reaction. And then also understanding how to report incidents because, as I said, it's from reporting those incidents that we're able to learn and sometimes it's reporting within your service and then reporting to your governance body, so ACECQA, and then sometimes it's actually reporting to the local council because you are as a childcare service, you are a food service provider, and they also need to be informed. And again, it's not about placing blame, it's about everyone being able to learn from it to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Next slide, please. The third unit, and this is quite a detailed unit, it's looking at menus and food labels. So, providing you with information about how to provide accurate information to parents about the food allergen content of your menus and the different ways that you can do that. And I'm gonna talk through a few of the resources that we've developed to help support you in a moment. Understanding the food labeling laws in Australia. And we've had a change to the food labeling laws over the last 18 months. So, we have two labeling laws in place at the moment. So labels under the old labeling system or the old labeling laws can still be around for another few years. So, we have labels that are probably less clear, still on the marketplace, on the shelves in the supermarket, and therefore in your pantries, as well as foods that are meeting the new labeling laws, which are much clearer around identifying food allergens in the product. So, it's really important that you understand how to read food labels that are for foods that meet the new legislation requirements as well as the old ones. And so we take you through all of that. And then also being able to identify food allergens in products, recipes, packaged foods, ingredients, and things. So, it is a really useful unit, that one, very practical, and also talks about how you can manage the risk in terms of from a communication perspective as well within your service. Next slide, please. And unit four, the last unit, which is the practical management of food allergens. So, this all about what you do on a day to day basis, not only in the kitchen where the food is being prepared, but also in serving the meal and supervising the meal. So how to prepare the foods so that they're suitable for children with food allergy. And this is with good risk minimization strategies in place. We know that we can never have zero risk. It's all about managing the risk. Identifying and managing areas with possible, sorry, cross-contamination in food service. And also looking at strategies in the workplace that can minimise the risk of an allergic reaction. There's a lot that goes on in a kitchen when you're preparing food, and there's simple things like separation of space and time that can help manage the risk, but you have to work within the facilities that you've got. And so we do provide some practical strategies to accommodate that. Next slide, please. So now I'm going to talk about some of the resources that we have available to help support you. Next slide, please. And I will mention that all of these resources are available from a central resource hub, and I'll provide that link at the end of the session. So, the food allergen ingredient substitution table, this is a really useful tool. It does need to be used with caution. It's there to provide you with guidance about how you can replace a food that contains an allergen, for example, wheat, if you've got a child with wheat allergy so that you can provide them with an alternative that's wheat-free. But we want to alert you to some other possible allergens that might be present in that alternative because you might be managing lots of different allergies or the child might have multiple food allergies, and that's not uncommon in young children for a child to have more than one food allergy. So this tool is there to help guide you, but it doesn't replace checking the ingredients of the product. So for example, if you've got a child with wheat allergy and you choose to use a soy flour because they're not allergic to soy, you must still check that the packaging of that soy flour to make sure it doesn't have anything else that they're allergic to, whether it's an ingredient, so, in the ingredients list, as an intentional ingredient, or whether there's a precautionary allergen statement such as, may contain something. So that's really important. Next slide, please. We also have developed a food allergen menu matrix and this is a sample of the matrix. We have a template that you can download for free from the website, and this is where you would list all of the different menu items that you offer in your childcare service. And you go through, according to the ingredients and the labels on the ingredients, or if it's an ingredient that comes from a supplier that's not labeled, they should provide you with a product information form. So you would use that to identify what allergens might be in that product. And so you go through all of the ingredients that make up that menu item, and you can make a note on your matrix whether it contains, so, putting a C, contains the allergen, or whether there's a precautionary allergen statement, one of those may contain statements for the allergen, so that you then have a quick reference sheet that provides you with the allergen information about all of your menu items. Now, this is a really effective tool if it's kept up to date. It's really important that it is kept up to date. So if for some reason, you have a different product has been supplied because the product you normally use is out of stock, you must go back and update your matrix if it's going to be a regular supplied product now because the other one is discontinued or something. So, this tool is only useful if it's kept up to date. And we do have an animation that actually steps you through how to complete this matrix tool. Next slide, please. And so, that's an image of the animation there. The animation is included in the training course itself, but it is also available from the resource hub. And you can see there that we've got the sample that you can download, as well as the template as well. Next slide, please. So now, I'm gonna talk about standardized recipes and I can't stress the importance enough of standardised recipes. They're important for a number of reasons. They're very important from an allergen perspective because if you are using the same recipe every time with the same ingredients, that will help you to complete your matrix. It will also mean that the same food is provided every single time this recipe is prepared. So the risk of a reaction is going to be reduced because you know what's in this food. It is still important, however, that your recipes are kept up to date because, again, if there's a supply issue and you are using a different beef stock, for example, you need to make sure that the allergen information is updated. Again, whether it's an allergen as a intentional ingredient or if there's a precautionary statement for the allergen. But these also help you in terms of managing your costs, calculating your costs and things like that because, again, you're using a standardized recipe and you know how many portions you should be getting from this recipe. So there's lots of good reasons from an allergy perspective as well as a business management perspective to be using standardised recipes. Once again, we have a sample, if we go to the next slide, we have a sample of the recipe. So I'll just talk about this first. At the bottom of the standardised recipe, we do have this summary of common allergens so that you can actually clearly identify whether it's an allergen included as a intentional ingredient, so it's in the ingredients list, or if it's from the precautionary allergen statement. And this, again, allows a quick reference and allows you to do a quick update if a ingredient changes, which will then allow a quick update of your matrix. We separate out all of the tree nuts now because that's part of the new labeling laws, that all of the individual tree nuts need to be identified, so we've included that. And then we include a nutrition information panel there so that if you need to calculate that information for your nutritional requirements, you can do that as well. But if we go to now to the next slide, so this is where I was going to say we have a standardised recipe template. We have an animation to step you through completing the standardised recipe template. We have an example and, of course, the template that you can download and use in your service. And they're designed as templates because we know that everyone does things slightly different. We don't want things to be too different because standardising it is what makes it effective. But you might want to put your own center logo on it. You need to be able to fill it out in terms of entering the information, and also signing and dating. And it's really important that things like signing and dating these documents is done because then you know when they were last updated. Next slide, please. We also have a food allergy record template and you can provide this to parents to complete when they tell you that their child has a food allergy. So they should be providing you, as I said, with a copy of the ASCIA action plan. But this will allow you to collect other information that will help you to provide a safe food service for that child. So again, this is available as a template that you can download and you can customize it. There might be some additional information that you would like to collect, but we've included in there, the minimum sort of information that we think you would need. Next slide, please. Now, this is the audit tool and the audit tool is a really important tool. It's designed to help you look at what you are currently doing around providing food and managing food allergies in your service, and see if there's ways that you can make improvements. So, if you already have practices in place, this will help you to check whether what you are doing is considered best practice, and whether you've thought of everything that needs to be done. So it allows you to improve what you are already doing. If you have nothing in place, then this is a really good tool that will help you to identify what you should be doing. So, it looks through every... or steps you through every aspect of a safe food provision from identifying what food allergies need to be managed to where the parents are providing meals and how you store those, because in some circumstance, if you've got a child with multiple food allergies, it may be better for the parent to provide food for that child than for you to provide it. And that's a conversation that you would need to have with the parent. But if they are providing foods, then you have to have good practices in place to make sure they're being stored appropriately so there's no risk of cross-contamination during the storage or when you heat and serve the food as well. So, there's lots of things to consider and this is, as I said, it's a little audit tool that just helps you go through step by step to think about all the things that need to be in place. Next slide, please. So, we've looked on the previous slide, the ordering, this is the receiving of the products and checking the storage of the products, and then also meal preparation. So if we go to the next slide. All of the different steps with meal step preparation, but then also meal delivery, so serving the meals to the child and making sure that there are appropriate processes in place. Next slide, please. And then if you have a breakfast station, these are potentially high-risk. So, if you have this almost sort of free-for-all breakfast station for children that haven't had breakfast before they get to your service, it's wonderful that you are providing a breakfast option for the children. But you need to be mindful that children with food allergies probably shouldn't be accessing their breakfast from there. And then you might have to have a separate provision for them. Next slide, please. And then another form that we've developed is one that looks at how you can map the different food allergies that you are managing, or all special dietaries that you are managing, but particularly the food allergies, for all the children that are attending your service. And so we've created this template as well. And this is a sample version, so it allows you to work out who has the allergy, what allergy it is, what meals you are providing, and where they are in the service, so, who's providing meals and who's supervising? And it just allows an extra check that that child is gonna get the right meal. Next slide, please. So we also have a range of videos. Many of these are included in the training, but they're also available from the resource hub. So, a range of different things there. Next slide, please. And there's some more, most of them are animation, some are videos as well. And just to finish up, I wanna talk a little bit about a best practice approach. So this is an overarching resource, "Best Practice Guidelines," that we released late last year, specifically for children's education and care services. It was undertaken with a robust consultation process nationally. We engaged with the overarching bodies, as well as with parents and staff working in children's education and care to develop best practice guidelines that would meet the needs for this sector. Next slide, please. Part of that is the development of a resource hub for children's education and care as well as for schools. But there is a children's education and care specific section and it's the Allergy Aware website. And this resource hub has all of the resources that you could possibly need to manage the risk of anaphylaxis and food allergies in your service. Next slide, please. So it has the guidelines and all of these templates that I've been referring to, next slide, please, as well as linking you to all the training that you would need to access. So the anaphylaxis training, for example, next slide, please, links to animations about how to use the devices, all of those tools that help you to have an effective management process in place, next slide, please, resources to help educate the children, and also resources for yourselves as staff, next slide, please, the ASCIA action plans that I referred to and also a range of resources available from ASCIA. Next slide, please. And we also have a section there for parents and guardians and I just wanted to alert you to that, too, because this is where you can direct them. If they've got lots of questions, you can direct them to this website as well so that they can be better informed. Next slide, please. I just want to note that we've been able to develop all of these amazing resources and provide them free of charge thanks to government funding, so, from the Australian Government Department of Health. Next slide, please. And now I'm happy to take any questions.

- [Kate] Great, thanks so much for that, Sandra. We've had a few questions coming through. One question that's really great to see is that we've had a lot of people asking where they can do the AAA training, so I'm just going to drop the link into that chat. But if you want to just talk briefly about where people can find that, that would be good.

- Yes, sure. So, you can either go to the Allergy Aware website or you can go to foodallergytraining.org.au. And if you go to the food allergy training website, make sure you click on the All About Allergens for children's education and care so that you're doing the right course. When you complete the course, you will get a certificate of completion that you can provide to your employer and also keep on file for yourself, and the resource hub that has all of those resources that I was talking about as well is also available from that food allergy training website. So, yes, there's so much information there that we hope will help make this much easier for you to manage. Thanks.

- [Kate] Great. So we'll drop those links into the chat. We've had another question just around whether a family daycare educator should keep an EpiPen.

- So, with the family daycare, I guess it depends on how many children you have and if you're a bit remote from medical care would make a difference. I think you need to look at the risk management of it. Having a general use EpiPen or Anapen, there's two devices now available in Australia, available there in case someone has a reaction for the first time, can be helpful, but it really just depends. You have to look at the level of risk. I think for a center that has a number of children, you know, the risks are potentially higher. With a smaller number of children, the risks are lower. If there's a child that already has a known food allergy, they should be providing their own device. But certainly if there's a concern about getting access to an ambulance service quickly, then you would definitely need to consider it.

- [Kate] Okay, great. I've got two separate questions here, which I'm going to combine because I think they're relevant to each other. The first is, how long does it take to complete the training? And the second being, do you recommend all educators complete the training annually?

- Okay, so the training takes about an hour. We've tried to keep it as short as possible. You don't need to do it in one sitting. The way it's designed is you can jump in, do one module, which might take you 10 minutes, and exit the training and then when you go back in again, you'll just pick up where you left off. So, but it does take about an hour for most people by the time you go through the quizzes at the end of each of the units, as well as the final quiz. And in terms of how frequently, we would say you should do it at least every two years. We know that some services do recommend that the training is done annually. And I think if you are managing a lot of different special dietaries, a lot of different allergies, it's helpful to do the training more regularly. But at the very least, it should be every two years. And bearing in mind that on top of that, you need to do your anaphylaxis training as well.

- [Kate] Great. Now, we are coming up hard against 11 o'clock. I think we've got time for just one or two more questions. What I will note is that we've had a couple of comments and questions coming through regarding, I guess, the need for all of the paperwork, with some people commenting that it feels like quite a lot of additional information and paperwork. My understanding is that the resources have been developed in light of the fact that there is a recognition that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this space. Do you have any comment around that, Sandra?

- Yes, I think that it does... I know it does look like a lot of paperwork, but what you need to think about is the fact that initially setting it up, yes, it's going to take you time, but maintaining that paperwork is not a lot of time. So it's worth investing the time initially because it will make an enormous difference to how you manage the risk. And I think you also need to come at it from the perspective that if a reaction did occur and you had to show what you have in place to protect children who are at risk of anaphylaxis due to a food allergy, you've got clear documentation of how you manage your risks. So, I think it's worth the effort, noting that initially getting into the swing of using standardized recipes and completing a matrix, yes, that is gonna take a bit of time initially. And share the load. There's some work that needs to be done by the person who is the cook or chef actually preparing the meals, and there's other work that needs to be done by administrators. So you can share that load.

- [Kate] Great, thank you. Now, we are at 11 o'clock, but there's just two more questions that I wanted to quickly address before we go and we can send around relevant links and resources to people who have attended today. One question was, does it cost? And I know, Sandra, you mentioned earlier that it's a free training that's available. The other one that I just thought is relevant to touch on is how relevant is this training for preschools where parents provide children's food? It sounds like it's a lot about services who provide food. So, I think that refers specifically to the training.

- Yes, I think, yes, the trainings are available free of charge, all of the resources are available for free. With regards to services where the parents provide food, it's still really important that you understand good risk minimisation for food allergies. And so, while you may not be preparing the food, you're still supervising the food. If parents are providing the food and then you are having to serve it, that's another level of risk there as well. So, it is important. I think this training just gives a really good overview of all of the risks around children eating in this sector and what you can do to reduce the risk. So I would still suggest that you do it, yes, I would still suggest that you do it.

- [Kate] Perfect, thank you very much. Now, Sandra, I'm conscious that we are now at time. I think there should be... if we click again, Josiah, there should be some details that pop up on the slide for Sandra with some contact details, which we can also pop into the chat. But thank you to everyone who joined today for your time. We hope you found the session useful. Apologies for those whose questions we haven't got to, but we will get a report at the end of the session, and get back to as many as we can. And thank you once again, Sandra, it's been an absolute pleasure having you again.

- Thank you so much.

- [Attendee] Thank you.

- [Attendee] Bye.

- [Attendee] Bye, everyone.

- And center- And some practical ways that they've been able to work on pay and conditions and wellbeing as well, so we know that workforce attraction and retention are central issues to the early childhood education and care sector because quality early learning depends on a quality workforce. We also know that during COVID and all of those things, the community has been able to recognise well and truly the absolute centrality of the work of early childhood education educators and teachers, but we also know that there's real challenges. There's a sense of fatigue by many in the sector. There's challenges in terms of both attraction and retention, and we know that we have to work, you know, between governments and with the sector in partnership on how we solve for some of these issues and how we continue to grow and learn from each other. So we got you to go on the Menti now that we're all experts at QR codes, and we'd asked you a question about what do you think is the biggest challenge is facing the early childhood education and care workforce? Just a small question that I know that you are the absolute experts on, and so you could see that Menti picture always comes up in big writing, some of the key issues that many of you are raising. So it's interesting to see documentation and time management, some of those sort of administrative burden issues coming up loud and clear, paperwork, and then, of course, some of the key issues in terms of finding staff, retaining staff, shortages, but, also, and, really, you know, it's really important to see this is those call outs about burnout and fatigue and that sense of exhaustion and how do we keep motivating and re-motivating. So look, these are the big, hot topic issues, and it's unsurprising but important to see the different themes that come through in that discussion. So as we go through, we hope that we can talk about some of the first steps of the next stages of our work in New South Wales and at the Commonwealth on assisting with some of those issues, and then, of course, we'll have the opportunity for you to be asking questions in the chat. As you put questions in the chat, I'm really conscious. We might not get to answer them all in our discussion or in responses on the chatline, but we still think it's really valuable, and we hope you'd find the value in that, too. We have the information of everyone who's joined today. So if there's extra information and advice that we can package up together and provide after this session, we will do that, and in addition to that, we, of course, regularly send emails out to the whole of the sector, and it helps inform our work in the department in terms of your identification of key issues. So plenty of opportunities for feedback as well as, I hope, some really helpful information for you today. So in terms of early childhood space, we are really conscious, as I said, that what we need to work on here is the interplay between what the Commonwealth has responsibilities for, what the New South Wales Government has responsibilities and can assist with, the higher education and VET sector including registered training organisations, peak bodies and unions and employers. and I know that many of you would be familiar with the National Workforce Strategy, and it seeks to identify the valuable, important roles that all of those players make. So if we move to the next slide, I just wanted to give you a bit of a quick summary of what the New South Wales Government is doing in terms of early childhood workforce investment. Now, for those of you who have been to other sessions in this road show, you would've heard or have heard in the news and in various ways, the really significant budget commitments that were made by the New South Wales Government to the Early Years Commitment. A key part of that commitment was direct investment in attraction and retention of early childhood educators and teachers. That specific budget commitment is $281.6 million over four years, which is a really significant uplift in that specific investment. I hasten to add that the whole reform agenda that was announced in that budget is many billions of dollars, and there are a range of ways where those investments, the broader investments, are also about how we can create the conditions for quality staff, attraction, and retention. So to give you a couple of examples of that, we got investment in the affordable preschool. I'd get you to go back one, sorry, person too quick on the uptake. The affordable preschool money, which is the follow-up from the COVID Free Preschool program, but that affordable preschool funding is available in both the long daycare preschool context as well as community preschool context, and so that's going to be built in to the Start Strong funding. So there'll be a way to think about your investments through that baseline funding and affordable preschool, and in addition, there was the announcement of a really significant, affordable, and accessible childcare fund, and in that, when we talk about affordability and access to early learning and childcare, we obviously need to be thinking about the attraction and retention of the workforce, but to get specific about the 281.6 million, we've got specific workforce investments and money that we are keen to get out the door in a way that's really supportive of the sector, and so that's what this slide gives you an indication in some of the first steps that we've taken in terms of scholarships investments. A number of you may have been aware of our previous scholarship programs. These are turbocharged. We're now able to offer really significantly additional numbers of scholarships, and we're able to build in some incentives for retention in those scholarship programs. So you'll have seen in the chat and also down there, we have the web links so you can check out and find out some more information about those scholarships. We have overall scholarships for ECTs at the moment. We have Aboriginal scholarships and inclusive practice and education scholarships as well. We are working, and we'll hear more from our VET colleagues, but on a range of ways of incentivizing uptake on the VET side of thing as well as early childhood teachers. So if we move on to the next slide, this is what I mentioned before, which is that I'm really conscious that it's the workforce investments in terms of us thinking about attraction and retention of itself, but, also, how we can utilise our Start Strong funding, the fund, and think about workforce in the context of the universal pre-kindergarten commitments. So we're making some down payments in the kind of work that we can do with the sector now, but this is going to be a long-term journey, but what's really exciting, I hope, that you'll all be feeling about this reform journey is it's about emphasising the centrality of early childhood education and the value of the professionalism and the focus and the commitment of early childhood educators and teachers. So I'm not sure... I've got lost on my slides, Daniel. Do I have another slide?

- [Daniel] No, Gil, that's it. Now, it's Jacinda's turn.

- Great, I will give just a little bit of a plug before we move to Jacinda that as we go through the session, we will be hearing, as I said before, from my training services colleagues, and that will give you a really exciting insight into some of the VET fee-free places that we have on offer, which is a really important part of the picture and a really strong partnership between the Commonwealth and the states. So Jacinda will be able to speak to that. So, yes, I will hand over now to Jacinda. What's a really great thing, at the moment, in terms of the momentum about early childhood is the Australian Government and state governments have worked closely together over a number of years, but there's an absolute commitment and the level of reform and excitement that's coming out at the Commonwealth and the state level to bring that even closer together. So we're working really closely with Jacinda and team on workforce and a range of other initiatives, and we're delighted to have you here to hear about what the Australian Government's got on offer.

- Thanks, Gil, it's lovely to be here. Can everybody hear me? It's always the first test. Excellent, thumbs up, perfect. Okay, good afternoon, everybody. It's lovely to see, well, not see everybody, but to be able to speak to everybody on a Tuesday afternoon. My name is Jacinda Still, and I head up the workforce, preschool, and quality branch in the Federal Department of Education. Before I start my presentation, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today and pay my respects to elders past, present. I acknowledge the ongoing connection that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to this land and recognize them as the original custodians. I would also like to acknowledge any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that may be present today, and thank you very much to the New South Wales Department of Education for having me along. I'm very excited to speak to this group, and hopefully, the information I'll give you will be really helpful. I'm going to cover a few different topics and supports that are available to the early childhood education and care workforce, and those are programs that are currently sponsored by the Australian Government. I'm also going to touch on a few of the measures and commitments that we have planned for the future as well, but broadly speaking, our goal is to build a bigger, better trained, and more productive workforce to boost income, living standards, and create more opportunities for Australians to get ahead and achieve their goals, and we work very collaboratively with the New South Wales Government and other governments across the country to address those workforce issues, and that's the acknowledgement, but these issues are really complex, and they require solutions that come not only from governments working together that the whole early childhood sector working to find those solutions. Our education ministers, the honorable Jason Clare and Dr. Anne Aly, understand that early childhood education and care workforce are critical to achieving the goals. Minister Aly has hosted a number of round tables with key sector stakeholders in Australia in the lead up to the National Jobs and Skills Summit, and I'll speak a little bit about that in a second, and then there is, of course, the focus of the Summit, which was to bring together all Australians including the unions, employers, governments to address our shared economic challenges and to help shape the future of the Australian's labor market, and, of course, this includes the really important issue of addressing workforce shortages, and I'll speak to the Summit a little bit more as well, but as part of this, I'll cover some of the programs available to the workforce and the work that is underway to attract developed, retained support, our high quality staff that we need. This includes a number of actions under the National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy, and some of the other programs that are available across the Australian Government as well. A number of the programs I'll talk about are looked after by other departments in the Australian Government. So I may not be able to answer all of your questions, but we will certainly provide links that you can go and get information from as well, and finally, before I get further into the presentation, I'd just like to acknowledge that the government has made commitments to address paying conditions in female-dominated sectors, such as the early childhood and education care sector through reforms to the Fair Work Commission, the Fair Work Act, and enterprise bargaining arrangements. These are big changes, and I'm expecting the implementation timeframes and implications for both governments and employees will be worked through over the next 12 to 18 months. Okay, so this slide is all about the round table discussions that the minister held in the lead up to the Job Summit, and she did this because attendance at the Jobs and Skills Summit was pretty limited. So ministers were encouraged to meet with stakeholders prior to the event to understand the key issues facing the various sectors. Our minister, Dr. Ann Aly, was very enthusiastic about holding round tables with the sector as well as meeting with young people. She held three round tables including one in Sydney with attendees from sector peak bodies, providers, unions, and most importantly, early childhood educators and early childhood teachers. They were very successful and the minister came away with a lot of renewed enthusiasm and energy. Some of the key things from the discussions focused on issues, many of you are currently facing such as retaining and recruiting educators, early childhood teachers, and future leaders. Other themes that were discussed included what more governments could do to remove barriers to skilled migration such as adding educators, sorry, to the skilled migration list and build the public profile and recognition for the early childhood educator professional widely. A lot of these broad strategies were discussed in terms of how we will address the challenges, and some of those are on the screen now, and I'm sure everyone would agree how vitally important they are, not only to the sector, but to the wider community, and these outcomes have been shared with the Federal Treasurer as well. Can I get you to go to the next slide, please? So to provide a little bit more detail about the Jobs and Skills Summit, it would come as no surprise that yes, the early childhood education and care sector was really a key topic of the event, and we did say that it really should have been the easy, easy show 'cause it was referenced so often throughout the conversation. It was acknowledged that numerous times that a high quality, affordable, and accessible workforce is an enabler of children's learning and development and an essential support to parental employment. In his opening address to the summit, the prime minister acknowledged early childhood education and care workers are not only doing a vital job in the face of pressures and shortages, but are also making it possible for millions of other people to do their jobs, too. You were the heroes of the pandemic. 36 immediate actions from the summit will be progressed to build a bigger, better trained, and more productive workforce to help deliver secure jobs with growing wages, boost income, and living standards and create more opportunities for more Australians. The key outcomes relevant to our sector are on your screen now and include the identification of priority areas where governments can collaborate to better support outcomes across our system with a particular focus on workforce shortages. 38 additional priorities were also laid out for further action, and these are intended to promote full-time employment and grow productivity for the benefit of Australians. There are recordings available if you want to go and have a look at them, and they're about the Australian Government treasuries website. Next slide, please. An important product to this sector is the 10-year National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy that was developed by all governments in the sector. Strategy, as you know, was released last October on the Australian Education and Care Quality Authority website or also known as ACECQA, and included 21 actions intended to address the long-term and persistent issues, which impact our ability to attract and retain a quality workforce. For example, key actions of the strategy include improving professional recognition and lifting the public profile of educators, promoting careers in the sector to new entrants, improving access to professional development, and supporting educator wellbeing. This takes us to the strategy's implementation and evaluation plan, which was also endorsed by all governments and released earlier this month. Similar to the strategy, ACECQA coordinated the development of the implementation plan through a rigorous design process involving governments, employers, peak bodies, higher education institutions, and other key stakeholders from the sector, and importantly, it commits all governments in the sector to taking the strategy's actions forward as a priority. This will be an important step forward in our effort to retain and improve the experience of those working in the sector and attract new entrants, and it's intended to compliment the additional workforce supply measures that are being discussed today, and that both the strategy and the implementation plan are available on the ACECQA website. Next slide, please. I want to talk now about the recruitment services that are offered through Workforce Australia, which is managed by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. The services are designed to be simple, effective, and provide a valuable service for businesses, including early childhood education and care services. To understand how Workforce Australia works for you, we'll look at a user journey, and this is Anna's. Anna is the approved provider of a childcare service and needs to recruit new staff, which I'm sure, all managers online today have been in Anna's shoes. Workforce Australia online is a no-cost, digital platform that Anna can use to find, attract, and recruit educators, early childhood teachers, and center managers. It allows providers like Anna to advertise jobs and include tools and filter options to help us search. It's a really effective tool, and if we skip to the next slide, you'll see that there's a little bit more detail available as well. What this can do is help you look through and filter by candidates with recent experience, skills, and qualification, licenses, and more, and you can also keep up to date pools of suitable candidates that match your needs by saving candidate lists or recent searches. I encourage you to have a look at this site. It's quite user-friendly, and hopefully, you will find it very useful. Next slide, please. Another support available is the Apprenticeships Incentive System. We all know that apprenticeships and traineeships play a critical role in creating a sustainable pipeline of skills in the Australian workforce, and unfortunately, as many of you are experiencing, Australia currently has persistent shortage of skills in many industries, and data will tell us that 38% of skill shortages are occurring in occupations with a vocational pathway. So this is a key focus for the Australian Government on quality spending and investment in priority occupations. So the Australian Government has invested a significant amount of money into this system, and there's a lot of detail on this slide, but it's quite a useful snapshot of what it does, how it can help, and some of the pathways available. All this incentive scheme is also underpinned by the Australian Apprenticeships Priority List, which includes 77 occupations and skills shortages, and that includes early childhood educators. It also includes wage subsidies for employers and direct payments to apprentices and trainees. I think that's what I'll cover on that slide. I'll get you to move to the next one. I'd like to just quickly talk through the implications of skilled migration of visa processing, and I'm sure we are quite interested in this one. The broadening visa options are only part of the solution, and it's also important to remember that a migrant's decision to come to Australia generally includes considerations of factors outside of the visa process. The Department of Home Affairs is investigating opportunities to streamline skilled visa settings and improve those processing times, and a lot of announcements were made post the Jobs and Skills Summit to that effect. The Department of Home Affairs also has business and engages, sorry, through business and industry by what they call the BIRO office network, which is business industry in regional outreach, and BIRO engages directly in the stakeholders to help fill some skills gaps where Australian workers are not available, and information on the screen at the moment gives you some updates in terms of three pilots that have been run out of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to assist with future policy design in this area, and hopefully, the pilots will not only be successful, but that they will then be rolled out on a more permanent basis, and finally, I'll get you to go to the last slide. This last bit is about the Be You program, which is a national mental health initiative delivered by Be You Home in collaboration with Early Childhood Australia and Headspace. The Be You program is there to support the sector. It's available to all educators and learning communities who work with children from birth to 18 years across the country. It's intended to support educators from early learning services and schools to develop a positive, inclusive, and resilient learning community, and there are a range of resources and tools available on the website. They provide mental health supports, educator wellbeing, and a whole range of other initiatives. You can sign up to be part of a Be You learning community and access a full range of resources and consultant support. So there there's a lot of information both on screen and at that link, and I encourage you to go and have a look and do that, but I also wanted just to thank you for the time to bring a couple of these programs to everyone's attention, and there's also a lot of information on our department's website at education.gov.au and just follow the link through to the early childhood section. Thanks, Gil.

- Thanks so much, Jacinda, and what a great and important one to end on with Be You, and I know we've been trying to answer lots of the questions and the chat and a lot of going to burn out and wellbeing issues. So really encourage everyone to take up the opportunities with Be You, only one part of the solution, but a really key resource for all of the sector. Conscious of time, we're moving on to the wonderful Jo Barton. I had the privilege of meeting Jo only very recently. She was talking to me about her preschool, and, you know, there's still challenges, but how they've, you know, built up, attracting and retaining their workforce and taking some real ownership on paying conditions. So we thought it would be delightful to have Jo here today. Now, everyone comes from a range of different service types and regional metro context and not one size fits all, but I think it's really valuable to hear from Jo's experience and see what parts might be relevant to your own service and your own role. So thanks so much, Jo, for being here, and over to you.

- Hello, thank you, Gil, and thank you, Jacinda. I'd like to acknowledge Muringura land where I am on today, pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Look, it was really great to hear Jacinda speak about the National Workforce Strategy, and it's great to see that it aligns with some of the actions we've been trying to implement here to attract and retain staff. I do hope we can provide what has worked in our context and it might assist some of you today. So basically, strategic planning is key in ensuring the continuity of the staff. You need to gather information through a variety of surveys with staff and families that can include orientation surveys, just general family exit surveys as well as induction and exit strategies from surveys from your staff. Our sales investigate in enterprise agreements. You can liaise with unions and sector supports such as through the IEU or CCSA and an appointed agent for bargaining and to help navigate the enterprise agreement process 'cause it can be quite complex. Make sure that you always consider the department funding guidelines. They're essential to understand how best you can structure your service to maximise funding because if you need that funding money and most of it, what you can get to implement some of your strategies. Use a SWOT analysis, which is identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and plan for any opportunities and threats within your service context. Next slide, please. So the main point on this is that we do have longevity as staff who are very satisfied with their paying conditions and feel valued by management personnel and the practice and procedures that we implement because we seek their opinions and we value their opinions. These factors obviously contribute to our retention of staff and the retention of staff is also supported by our family surveys, which identified our major asset was our qualified staff and the relationships that they can develop with us. Identified issues with longevity also comes a lot of educators and ECTs getting closer to that retirement age. So we realize that we do have to plan for succession. We're not gonna be here forever, and another identified issue was something that everyone identified before, and that was that documentation and planning and non-contact time. More time is needed to complete all those tasks. So they were definitely identified issues through our surveys. Also, external factors, such as affordability, funding, government policy, economic conditions, and the predictive workforce shortage all have to be considered when developing your action plan. Our next slide, please. So in our action plan, we did identify opportunities, the main ones being valuing our staff, and to do that, we decided to investigate pay parity for our early childhood teachers and also for educators to a higher pay level. Maintaining conditions in light roles is really important. So investigating some of those awards and enterprise agreements is crucial. Retaining the dedicated staff that we have and recognising the benefits that having those relationships and continuity of staff has to our service. Also, attracting applicants when we do leave that are going to have the similar philosophy to the educators and ECTs that we hold dearly here and our families, and that will benefit the preschool community as a whole, and also recognising that the effort contribution and continuing high standard of all our staff is invaluable and making sure that they know it's appreciated. So next slide, please. So this is our journey, specific to our context, on how we address the issue of improving wages. Basically, it takes time. It's small steps to implement as well as a commitment to work towards pay parity with a committee of management support, utilising information from your surveys as a basis, and your family's also recognizing that they may have to make up any shortfall in budget projections by paying some fees. We now have been able to maintain pay parity. You can see our journey there from where we negotiated our first enterprise agreement. We then moved towards structuring percentage increases to reach parity across the board, and we've also been now lucky enough to maintain pay parity and improve working conditions supported by the additional funding we have received with the introduction of Start Strong Free Preschool as well as continuing not charging fees to our families. Our next slide. So as I said, maximising funding is crucial for strategies to be enabled. You need to ensure that your enrolment structure supports maximising eligible children attending for the 15 hours a week or 600 hours a year as a first priority. Creating a realistic budget and then monitoring and making adjustments where necessary to make sure you stay on track and utilise grant opportunities. There is a myriad of brand opportunities out there through the department itself such as the quality learning environment grants, your local councils, subscribing to GrantGuru, or similar similar services, and they can locate the suitable grants for you. When you develop and maintain those relationships with your community and families, it provides opportunities to network, increase your profile, encourage participation, and skill sharing, and with all that, they will then donate time, resources, and engage in mutually beneficial projects across your preschool. Next slide, please. So improvements to conditions, so with succession planning and staff development and training, ensure that you make plans in collaboration with your other staff. Involve them in the process. Partner with universities and RTOs to facilitate student placement. If you mentor students, it also provides then an opportunity to recruit. If you find a good one, you may be able to keep them, which is fantastic. To increase allocated non-contact time, that is not always an easy thing to do. So you have to use any time that you have to your best benefit. We have restructured staff meetings to ensure that it's team-based collaboration, and we use that time wisely. We don't get a lot of whole group staff meetings. So we try and focus on PD and reflection and growth, and address the everyday housekeeping type items in emails or team chats, and increasing time for ECT programming or educated documentation, try and do this when you're over ratio, you may have someone who comes in to cover lunches, perhaps getting them in an hour earlier and implementing rosters will allow educators and ECTs to have additional time to complete those tasks, and wellbeing and morale, we have had a big focus on that like everyone else, I guess, over the last two years with the challenges that we've had. I think it's about utilising those support programs that Jacinda mentioned, too. Be You is a big one that we've engaged with. Safe Work also have a transitioning wellbeing program. We have provided access to a staff employee assistance program, and most of all, it's, you know, enjoying each other's company. We're at work for a large proportion of our lives. So whilst, you know, you are professional, and you provide the education and care to the children to the best of your ability, you also wanna have a sense of humor, respect differences, and celebrate milestones and achievements within the team. That all contributes to staff wellbeing, and it makes the workplace a happy and supportive environment. Involving your staff with the journey along the way is essential. They take ownership, utilise their interests, and their passions, and, you know, give them the opportunity to explore those further, and basically, you know, I thank you for including us in today's presentation, and I hope that it has helped some in beginning their own journey to advocate for the value of early childhood teachers and educators and improve conditions within their own communities, and if anyone does have any further questions or would like assistance, feel free to contact me. Our email address is on our website at Albury Preschool, and I would love to assist in any way possible. So thank you.

- Thanks so much, Jo, and I'm really conscious. There were a couple of comments in the chat about there were some things that Jo covers that are maybe specific to community preschools, but I hope that everyone could see that there's a lot of the kind of strategy and planning that Jo was bringing to that work that's approachable for any part of the sector, and I've read it in a couple of comments, but I just wanted to really emphasise that there's been a bit of concern in the chat about how Free Preschool isn't available to other parts of the sector. Now, very conscious, it isn't available to family daycare and OSH because it is about that preschool delivery, but the Affordable Preschool program, which is replacing Free Preschool, will be open to long daycares offering preschool programs for funding from next year as well as community preschool. So we were really excited about that being part of the budget commitment. Excellent. So I know there's information overload. Thank you so much for the questions. We're trying to get through so many of them, and there's a wide variety of topics, but we will quickly move on to our next and final key part of today's session, and that's with Stacy, from our skilling for recovery initiative, our training services part of the department. I know there's been some questions about visas and fee-free VET programs, so Stacy's our woman to take us through through that work and perhaps answer any of those questions through her presentation or she might be able to pop some additional answers in the chat. So thanks, Stacy. Over to you.

- Thanks, Gil, very much appreciated to be here. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Stacy Mitchell Bales from Training Services New South Wales Workforce Development Team, and I'm presenting to you today on the lands of the Wiradjuri people, and I wish to pay more respects to elders past, present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal people joining us on the call. So today, I'll be touching briefly on a range of programs and services that Training Services New South Wales that can assist your business to scale and attract a workforce. If you'd like to engage with our team to find out more about the opportunities discussed today, please ensure you complete the poll at the end of our session, and a representative from our team will be in contact to discuss your needs in detail. Can we click over to the next slide, please? So the workforce development team was created on the back of the bush fires and in response to COVID and was set up about 22 months ago to support new and existing New South Wales businesses with customized workforce development support to assist with talent attraction and scaling initiatives to help businesses create, sustain, and retain a viable workforce. Our workforce development teams work across a handful of sectors and early childhood education being one of those. Workforce development takes a statewide approach and predominantly supports new investors and large and multi-regional employers, but we also have about 20 local skills brokers that are located across New South Wales in our regional offices that support local initiatives. So when you engage with workforce development, we provide a concierge service and really like to understand your business' needs and goals with regards to workforce and skills, and we develop a customised workforce development plan projects to support the achievement of those needs and goals. When we develop the workforce development plans, the projects are usually related to talent attraction and skills or developing partnerships and connections, and so when you look at the slide, it really represents a range of services that we offer. Our service offerings, really, I suppose, in the middle, they really showcase that, as we know, it is quite difficult to attract a workforce, and we've got to get really smart around where we attract our workforce, and so when we develop strategies, we have connections with our local, regional industry education partnerships team, and we have 25 senior project officers across the state working with schools to develop linkages with industry to showcase what the future career opportunities are and how, I suppose, early childhood is a preferred opportunity for a career for some of those students, and so the REAP officers develop programs and create awareness opportunities for students to really gather the information that they need to make informed choices about their future career and not only the students, but also the parents and the careers advisors as well. So there's some really great opportunities that are happening across the state at the moment with REAP programs and connecting industry to schools. We also have quite close connections with our federal government with regards to Workforce Australia, and so we're actually have a few programs at the moment running specifically with the transition to work cohort or the parents' next program, and so we have connections where we can actually develop job profiles and send it out to our connections and promote those opportunities across those connections that we have. Also, we have higher ed connections. So if it's to develop connections with higher ed or it's to develop graduate program or to, I suppose, attract alumni from higher education, we can definitely develop those connections as well. We also have a number of training services programs, for example, the Refugee Employment Support Program, and we also can attract vocational education and training alumni. So we have over 300 training organizations in New South Wales that deliver smart and skilled programs for Training Services New South Wales. So we can actually attract VET alumni when they're coming out of those, I suppose, programs and finishing up. So in the middle, it really shows you the cohorts of people that we try and attract into developing a pipeline of talent and skills for New South Wales employers. We also really focus our programs around skills, and we're able to develop skill sets and micro credentials. So when we talk skill sets is we can develop sort of customised programs that are part qualifications suited to up skill your existing workforce or can develop pre-employment programs to attract a new workforce. We also can develop specialized training programs, and so I'll touch a little bit more on that in the next slide, but we've actually developed some programs like the diploma to degree bridging program. Sorry. It's jumped. Can we go back, sorry. I didn't mean for us to go to the next slide, but thank you. Also, we like to develop partnerships. So we've got connections through to specialist advisory services, Investment New South Wales, and Global New South Wales. So we really take that sort of concierge approach to really identify what their needs are and connect you. We have a range of funding to support workforce development opportunities, and they can be accessing training and attraction and also for non-accredited development of programs, but we take a really whole of government approach, and so when we are developing the programs, we reach out to other governments and to actually make sure that we are creating programs that are best fit for industry and also what the priorities are, and we've done that in a number of programs recently. If we can go to the next slide, please. Thank you. So there's a number of skilling strategies that are available to your business to engage and attract a new workforce or to upscale your existing workforce. Some of these include pre-employment programs, as I mentioned, and they're a great way to attract a new workforce where a student can undertake a few units of competency, sort of a bit of a taster program, out of early childhood education. Usually, those programs are matched with a work experience element. So it gives the student an opportunity to really get a good understanding of what the industry is about so that they can really transition into maybe a traineeship or a full qualification pathway and start working in the sector,, but it also gives you, as an employer, an opportunity to see if they're a really good fit for your workforce and for the industry. We also have Summer Skills, which is a piece that's actually underway at the moment going through promotion, which is a short skill set promoted to school leavers, and that doesn't actually include a work experience element, but there are many providers across New South Wales that have actually put their hand up to participate and deliver early childhood short skill set. So they will be conducted over, I think, the next couple of months, because their students will be, I suppose, completing their year 12 and leaving school and looking for their first career. Where I've got early intervention skill set, so just recently, or, sorry, not recently. We've undertaken one program, but there are four programs scheduled for term four in early intervention, and this is, I suppose, was a partnership developed in with TAFE New South Wales to develop an early intervention skill set, which is a non-accredited micro skills to support early intervention skills, which was identified as a gap in the train package that was released last year. So there are four programs that are actually happening across the state next term. We've also got Certificate III and diploma traineeships, which I'm sure majority of your services are engaged with. Also, we can develop customized skill sets, and there's also school-based traineeships, so where you can engage a student at school over their year 11 and 12 to undertake a traineeship whilst they complete their HSC, but, also, they can work one day a week with you, and also complete their Certificate III early childhood education care over their year 11 and 12. They usually would have to do an about a 100 days over the term over those two years for them to then be signed off, and then they're actually complete, ready to start working in your service. If we can go to the next slide. So under the New South Wales Job Trainer program, the New South Wales and Commonwealth government are funding fee-free training places for existing workers to complete the diploma of early childhood education and care up until the 31st of December this year, and the New South Wales Government has just announced an additional 25,000 fee-free places until June 2024 to allow workers to up-skill to the diploma of early child education and care. So within true requirements there, if a student is actually living and working in New South Wales, they are eligible for the training under smart and skilled, and if they hold a 2013 or a 2021 qualification, they can go directly into the new diploma fee-free option. If the student holds a qualification before the 2013 package, they will be required to upgrade to the most recent Certificate III before enrolling in the diploma. Now, the New South Wales Government announcement with the early childhood qualifications are fee-free. So this will be at no cost to the student, and this can be achieved through a recognition of prior learning process if the student has been working in the industry, and the relevant experience is noted. So trade packages in Australia change and keep up to date with the developments in industry and the diploma of early childhood education has the prerequisites of those two qualifications previously mentioned. The new Train Package was reviewed between 2017 and 2020, and the entry requirements were deemed as being the pre-entry requirements for the diploma. So the older iterations of the early childhood certificate were not included as they were considered to hold outdated knowledge and relating to child protection and national regulations, but so to enroll somebody into the diploma with experience in the industry, they would need to contact their training organization that the candidate wishes to complete their diploma with and need to first enroll them into the newer Certificate III qualification to upgrade their qualification. So there is also our workforce development email that's listed on the flyer and, also, will be in the Q&As for us. If you want to engage more on a discussion on what that looks like and to actually have some supports and connections, we can definitely have a discussion around those entry requirements and connect you with a registered training provider to look at a recognition of prior learning process. If we go over to the next slide where-

- [Gil] We've only got a couple more minutes left.

- That's all I've got?

- Yes.

- Thank you, this is my last one, thank you, and so on the poll, we really wanna identify your workforce needs and how we can assist you, and I know that I've rushed through so much today, and there is so much on offer, and I could talk for probably an hour, but I'd like to sort of launch the poll for companies who are interested to connect with Training Services New South Wales. We can, I suppose, connect with you after the program if you can list your details, your contact details, number of employees that you've got, the post code, and answer four quick questions around your workforce needs, then we will be able to connect with you after today and really drill down to what your workforce needs and attraction needs are and work on some specialist programs and workforce development plans that will assist in executing those needs and goals for your business. So...

- Fantastic, and look, there were a few questions in the chat, Stacy, that I think you answered in terms of that older qualification. So we've been receiving that question a number of times, so that opportunity to be considered for prior learning is fabulous, but we are gonna make sure we continue to get the comms out on that question because it's been raised a number of times. Someone from Eurobodalla Shire said, they've tried to be in contact with your team or another team before. So we'll definitely make sure we get them their information in the polls, and overall, thank you, Stacy, as people are filling out that poll, there is a rich sort of theme of questions and comments coming through that chat. There's some, which I can see, there's real frustration in the sector if there's things that you think you've been arguing for for a long time or there's some burnout, but there's also some cross collaboration that's going on in the chat, and I think a sense of that there are some opportunities that maybe some people weren't aware of or that they can hear that there are some new opportunities, et cetera. So what we are going to do is make sure we really have taken all of that on board. It will guide some additional advice that we provide out to the sector. We're really conscious that we have people from all different service types here, and we have people that... I noticed some one person in chat saying, "I'm on the floor," and so there's the perspective of the individual employee all the way through to center directors. So we'll make sure that we are taking that on board in terms of future road shows and future collaborations, and that's probably the final point I wanted to mention, which is we find road shows really valuable, and we hope you do, too, to do both information sharing, but, also, in addition to information sharing, to hear what's on your mind, challenges, opportunities, and to have some level of engagement, but, of course, it's not the deep and detailed engagement that many of these issues rightly deserve. So I just wanted to emphasise that as we do our work in workforce and across all of the reform agenda, we are doing deep dive sessions with serviced services from a wide range of different contacts and backgrounds. We're looking at the potential for some regional, deeper engagement across metro and regional areas. So your services may get involved in that, and we are always open to you getting engaged with us through those different email links and to reaching out to us in a variety of ways. If there's things that we covered in today's sessions or in other road show sessions that you're interested in learning more about. So it's 5:30 on the dot. I don't wanna keep you all back from busy normal lives on a Tuesday. Thank you very much to my colleagues from across this department and the Commonwealth and a special thank you to Jo from Albury Preschool for joining us and sharing her direct experience. Dan, anything else you needed to cover at the end?

- [Daniel] No, not at all, just thank you for everyone for attending and hope you enjoyed the session.

- Thanks all.

- [Daniel] Bye.

- Hey, good morning everyone. We're just going to give everyone a moment to enter today's session. I can see lots and lots of people joining in today. So welcome to today's session. We won't start just yet, we'll give everyone a moment to join in. It's great to see that there's so many people joining in today. Looking forward to a very busy and popular session this morning. So I can see that there's lots of people still joining us. We'll just give it a few more moments. People from everywhere across the state. Thanks for your good mornings. And I can still see there's lots of people joining in, so we'll just give it a few more moments before we begin. It's great to see that there's so many people that have made the time to come today. So just a few more moments and then we can begin. Okay, so I can see it's just a few moments after 10:00. And we might get started because there is a lot for us to talk about today and those last few people I can see are joining in. So welcome to everybody that is here this morning. My name is Nicki McDowell and I'm today's host of this session that's called Documenting the Program, Making Children's Learning Visible. I'm an early childhood teacher and I am currently an early learning advisor with the Department of Education. I'm part of the curriculum in early years primary learners team. And my colleagues in ECE have asked me to come along today to talk to everyone about documentation. Such a hot topic and it's really grateful to see, I'm really grateful to see that there's so many people that have joined in. Before we go any further today, I would just like to acknowledge that I am joining you today from the land of the Dharug people. And at the Department of Education, we recognise the traditional custodians of the lands and the waterways where we work and live. We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' unique cultural and spiritual relationship to Country. And we acknowledge their significance to culture in Australia. And we have a short video for you today with some children with their beautiful acknowledgement.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge Aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land. We promise.

- So thank you so much for those children and their acknowledgement for us this morning. So just while, oh, here we go. So just some housekeeping for today's session. So there is a large number of participants today, which means your microphone and your chat and your video functions are all disabled during the webinar. However, you can interact, there'll be a few different ways that you can. The first thing you can do is post any questions into the Question and Answer box down the bottom there. And again, due to the large number of people joining us, we will prioritise these questions. So vote if you see a question that you think you might like answered and we'll try and do that live throughout the presentation or towards the end. We have some allocated question and answer time. Any unanswered questions, we'll follow up in a response sheet that can be emailed out to all participants that have joined in today. Questions in regards to specific service operation won't be able to be answered today. However, you can reach out to Information and Enquiries who are always available to support with any questions that you do have around your specific service operation. And those details will go into the chat box for you to see. The next thing is that we'll be using Menti during today's session. So in preparation for that, please have your mobile phone so that you'll be able to scan the QR codes and join in. And the last point there is that this session is being recorded. So following on from this morning, it will be made available on the website. Before we go any further, I would just like to say that I am very much a hand talker, so I will try my best not to do too much of that and distract you from the content. Okay, so let's get started, into the real meaty stuff. Why are we here today? This session today is around the very hot topic of documentation and I've titled it documenting the program and around making children's learning visible because that's really the focus of the session today, how documentation can inform you to make curriculum decisions and how to make learning visible for the children that attend your services. So you will examine three things across the hour. It will really be around the requirements, what you're required to document. It will be some information around documentation to inform your programming decisions, and then, documentation to make children's learning visible. I'd also just like to call out that there'll be some, that today's session really isn't about telling you as an individual how you should document, and that's because it looks different in all the different settings and contexts across our service and our sector. So what it is going to offer you is, I guess an opportunity to reflect on what you're doing in your practices and maybe some areas of improvement or some strengths that you can identify and that you can work within your everyday practice. So there won't be any templates or checklists or digital platforms. It's really just a series of reflections for you to make those decisions yourself. So why do educators document? And I guess documentation is more than a professional responsibility. And there's this quote here from the guide to the NQF is that documentation "promotes relationships between children, educators, and families and it demonstrates professionalism." So yes, documentation is a professional responsibility. You do have that role as an educator to collect and collect children's learning, their skills and their understandings, but it's more than that. It's also knowing and understanding what you need to provide for children's learning. And when we think about documentation as a professional responsibility, there's many, many layers to this. And the first that we're going to explore today are, what services are actually required to document? So what does the law and what do the regulations say around documentation? So you can find this information in more detail at the link that can be placed into the chat now. But there are legislative standards around the educational program and practice for educators in the Early Years sector. And we're just going to have a quick refresh on the three regulations that really focus on documentation in practice for you to deliver that program. So the first is Regulation 74. And Regulation 74 is really about keeping records of what children know, what they can do and what they understand. So educators must document each child's needs, interests, experiences, and participation. And when they document this, that documentation will show the progress that children make against learning outcomes. It will take into consideration how long a child has been enrolled at the service. And then it will also take into consideration what's going to be done with that documentation, how it will be used, and how it will be understood by others. The second regulation that is specific to documentation is Regulation 75. And that means, Regulation 75 is aimed at making documentation accessible and available to others. And in particular, it's documentation about the educational program of a service being displayed in an accessible location for families to see. And the keyword in here is accessible. And that's accessible is going to look very different across all the different settings. So how do you ensure that families have the time and multiple opportunities to access that information? Are families asked what works for them? You may have an idea about how to do that, but is that actually responsive to your family's needs? Is there a tailored approach for individual families? Because one method of making the documentation accessible might not work for another family at your service. So things like languages, home languages, access to tech, technology, literacy skills within homes, all of these things need to be taken into account. And how do you ensure that documentation is shared sensitively considering a family's and a child's right to confidentiality? So that's the key focus of Regulation 75. And then the third regulation in regards to documentation is Regulation 76. And it's focused on families being informed of all the information that's collected in Regulation 74. So it really means that the the program is displayed and that families can see what's being planned for their child and that they have information about their child's learning and how they participate in the program. And again, it's around making it accessible. So how do you share this with families? Does it work for families? It has to work for them as well as working for you. Is it understandable for families? Is it presented in a way that they're going to understand the meaning behind it and the importance of that learning? And is it meaningful for families? Does it acknowledge things like individual families, cultures, and identities? Does it acknowledge what families find is important for their own child? And are they able to see that learning in that documentation? So that's just a really quick run through the three regulations that relate to documentation. Apart from the regulations, there's also some expectations. So under the National Quality Framework, there are the National Quality Standards and it's an expectation that all educators in early education and care settings meet these standards. And in particular, in relation to documentation, we're looking at quality area one, the educational program and practice, and then again, more specifically Element 1.3.1 assessment and planning. And you can see that the language of this standard includes the word documentation that each child's learning and development is assessed or evaluated as part of an ongoing cycle of observation, analysis of learning, documentation, planning, implementation and reflection. And that's direct from the NQS. So really this means the educators use the assessment and planning cycle to develop a planned and a reflective approach in designing and delivering programs for children. And we're going to explore that a little bit more. But before we go any further, it's time for you to use your phone or your device or whatever you have there with you, or you may even use the link there. So if you scan that QR code, you'll be taken to a multiple choice where you can answer this question. How confident are you to meet the requirements for documentation? So I'll just give everyone a moment to access that poll. If you can't use the QR code, you can go to menti.com and you can enter that code and it will take you to the interactive feature. Okay, so you can see we've got a very clear answer here that most educators, so I would even say majority of educators feel confident to meet these requirements, but I think what's also important to acknowledge is that there are some educators that this might be very new to. And it's about, thinking about who in your service or which person or what role is in your service that could support you with this to understand those requirements so that you can actually be meeting them. Some confidence to meet the requirements. Yes, it's quite a lot of information, but again, who in your service can support you with this? Is it your director? Is it your educational leader? Can you work within your team to get more of an understanding of this? Lots of people who feel confident to meet this and really great to see that there are some people out there who feel extremely confident and that they're exceeding their requirements. That's fantastic. And I think this is something to acknowledge that maybe you don't feel this way overnight, especially, if you are really uncertain of some of this, is that you need to take some time to develop your practices and to develop your skills so that you can feel that confidence in your own practice. I think, we'll move on from this. The other thing that can sometimes impact on our confidence around meeting these requirements and these expectations are some of the misconceptions because I think as a teacher, I'm very aware that there are a lot of common misconceptions and misunderstandings around what is required in regards to documentation. So I've just pulled four of those together today and I just want to make it really clear that these are actual just misconceptions and they can sometimes, I guess, cloud our views, and our understandings of what is a requirement. That the first common misconception around documentation is that you must have a quota or a certain number of pieces of documentation per child, per month or per term or whatever it might be. So in those regulations, that is not specified anywhere. It is a misconception. What I do want to say is that many services and many contexts have their own ways of ensuring that there is adequate amounts of documentation. And I think the question that you need to think about is the why. Why are those systems in place? And why do you have those numbers? And if it's working for you, then that's brilliant. If it's not working for you, what else can you do? Because it's not an actual requirement to have a set quota or a target. The next common misconception is that you must store all documentation where families can see it. And I think it's important to acknowledge there's a big difference between making documentation accessible to families, but also protecting and respecting their right to confidentiality. So there's some of that information that isn't available for all families to see. That is a misconception. However, what systems do you have in place so that families can see that information when it's important to them? Another misconception is that only the teacher is responsible for documentation. So again, nothing, none of that language in those regulations or those expectations specify roles. It is all educators who are responsible for documentation that will be led in different ways and there will be different levels of understanding. But it doesn't mean that one person isn't responsible and one person is. As an early education and care educator within the sector, these are all the expectations of you. And the last common misconception is that documentation must always be a written observation. And again, nothing in those regulations that specifies that, there are many different ways to document children's learning. And a common misconception is that it needs to be that written observation. And as today goes on, we'll have an opportunity to have a look at what some of your other options might be for you to capture children's learning in different ways. Okay, so we're just going to keep moving on here. And the next part of today's session is really focused on the role that documentation plays in the assessment and planning cycle. So if you've never seen this image before, I hope that you can take it today and really use it in your practice. This is taken directly from the guide to the NQF and this is the assessment and planning cycle. And this is what educators are required to do to deliver a quality program for children and individual children and groups of children in their service. So there's a short definition there that the assessment and planning cycle is used, is the process educators undertake to develop a planned and reflective approach in designing and delivering the program for each child. So it's really that way of making sure that you don't just do whatever you feel like you do, that your program is informed by children's learning and that's reflective and it's delivered in a very specific way. So how does documentation fit into this? I think the first thing that we need to explore is that documentation is a practice, it's a skill or a tool or an action that educators undertake that can inform their decision making. And on the screen is just, I hope a little bit of a graphic to help you to understand what I mean by this. So documentation allows educators to gather knowledge about what children know, what they can do and what they understand. This documentation is then used as evidence to inform future planning that you can reflect on your teaching, it helps you to make judgments about learning and then respond in appropriate ways. And then it just continues on. Again, you collect new documentation, which then allows you to gather new knowledge about what children know and what they can do and understand. And then that new knowledge that you've collected then in continues to inform your evidence. It becomes your evidence to inform your planning, to reflect on teaching and to make those judgments. So I think if you can see that documentation is a practice that can actually inform your decision making, then you can see how it fits into that assessment and planning cycle. And on the next slide, we're just going to explore what that can look like at each stage of that assessment and planning cycle. Because it's really important that when you are planning for children that each of those steps becomes part of your focus. So we're going to start at the top in a red box here. So I guess this is, I guess when you think about documentation, this is where your mind goes to first. Documenting observations. So this is the gathering of information about children's learning. This might be all the information that you collect about what children know, what they can do and what they understand. But documentation doesn't actually stop there because the next stage of the assessment and planning cycle is the analysis. So documenting the analysis of learning, interpreting what children know. So from that evidence that you've collected, that from those observations, what do you understand about that child? And you need to document that down. And I do have to say, I'll say this many times throughout today, is that not every piece of learning needs to be documented and analysed and go through each step of this program, of this cycle. But it is important that you've got evidence of this in, for all different children and to show their progress. So the next stage of that cycle is that you're documenting your plans for learning. So you've collected the evidence about where they're at, you've analysed what that means for each child and you've recorded or documented that in some way. And then you're going to document your plans for learning. What is your program going to be about and how are you going to present that or teach that to the children that are in your care. The next step of the planning cycle is that you are actually going to implement that. So you are going to document what happened, what strategies did you use when you engaged with the children? Was it spontaneous learning? Did you use intentional teaching strategies? But you're going to make a record of what worked and maybe what didn't work as well. And that's that last section of the planning cycle is that you reflect, you record some information and some documentation about what areas of learning were really successful and what didn't work so well. And you might begin to identify why that was so in those reflections. So you can see that documentation is a really essential element at every part of that assessment and planning cycle. I can see that there's some questions coming into our Question and Answer box. I'll just take a moment to have a look and oh yes, I can see. So maybe as the session's going on, I can try and address these or at the end, we can just spend some time to go through them all. So I think, keep them coming if you've got a question. Okay, so the next thing that I'd like for us to examine today is when you are documenting what actually needs to be visible? What should be in your documentation? So at each section of those, of that assessment and planning cycle, what should you include? We've given a little bit of insight already, but what should documentation demonstrate? And I guess documentation, the key purpose of documentation is really around outcomes or impact. And when we talk about outcomes or impact, I guess you can define that outcomes are what is used to measure children's learning. We've got the outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework that gives you a guide. And then you've got your impact. How is that learn- what happens and how does that contribute to overall progress for children? So when you're thinking about outcomes or impact, you're thinking about what children can know, do and understand. So in your documentation you have information that shows that to somebody. In documentation, the other thing that you may consider that you need to make visible is what children are learning. What skills and what development are they making around those outcomes and that impact? How does it contribute to their overall progress? The other thing that can be visible in your documentation is progression of learning and development. So this might be that progression towards learning outcomes, that bigger aspiration, it might be progression towards a very specific individual goal that might be part of an individual learning and education plan. There are lots of different goals for many different reasons, but your documentation can show how children are making that progression towards whatever goal or outcome that might be. That's a little bit about what to include in your documentation. The next thing to consider is how, how to make that visible? What are the documentation methods that you can use to make those outcomes and that impact visible? So I guess there are many, many different ways that you can do this. And I think when you consider collecting a range of documentation or using a range of different methods, it supports you to develop a more holistic image or understanding of a child. So as the screen comes on, who else is- So, photos. Photos are a great way that you can collect information about children's learning. You might use videos and then you can see how children are engaging and interacting with others or with outcomes. You might even use an audio recording. And then you can listen back and analyse that learning and you can identify what strategies you've used that were successful in your implementation of that. You might collect work samples. So creations or things that children have made themselves. And you can make some annotated notes to that to show that there are different ways of learning. It could be that it's a written observation that you use to collect information about children's learning. You might use something like a mind map that's developed over time that really demonstrates that progression towards a goal, towards an outcome. You might use learning stories, particularly, around group, groups of children and group learning. Learning stories can really capture the collaboration that can happen in those experiences. Your collection of information might come from a conversation with a family. So you need to remember that families have all of this knowledge about their own children and that can be used to inform how you make decisions and how you plan to reach outcomes and measure impact. Or it could be a series of jottings. You know, you start making some notes over a couple of days or maybe over a few weeks and suddenly you can see how it's all connected and you can use that series of jottings to demonstrate that, to show those outcomes are being made and progressed towards. And there are more. There are so many more other methods that you can use. And I think what this demonstrates is that the legislative and quality frameworks are not prescriptive about how documentation is completed. And they are open for the reason that documentation can come in many forms. It's not always that written observation. And that's because children learn in many different ways and that you need to have many methods to capture that over time. So we've talked a little bit about what needs to be visible in documentation and how you can make that visible. And I guess that's probably important to acknowledge that there are many ways again, that you can make that learning more visible again. And we talk about that as being rich and meaningful documentation. And that's a really big mouthful, a very open ended concept, rich and meaningful documentation. So what is mean by that? What do I mean by that? And it's around using the outcomes, using the Early Years Learning Framework to make that learning visible, because that's what it's there for. That the rich and meaningful documentation requires educators to understand the learning that's expressed in the Early Years Learning Framework because that's what that framework is for. The language of those outcomes in that framework, prompts educators to know what they are looking for and the language that they can use. So in particular, I'm talking about this column of those outcomes. And you can see that educators use the language and the outcomes of the framework to create that rich and meaningful documentation, that content in that documentation that shows the children's learning and it identifies their strengths and their skills and their understandings. And a very quick example of that, for example, is that if a child was engaging with an outdoor activity like an obstacle course, you can see there in Outcome 3, it might be that you're describing what that child is doing. And you know that that's important because here it says here in Outcome 3, that children engage in increasingly complex sensory motor skills and movement patterns. And that they're developing their spatial awareness to move themselves around the environment in a confident and safe way. So the language of the outcome is there to support educators to make that learning visible in their documentation. So on the next slide, we have an example. So this is just one example and I've got, actually, sorry, I apologise. We've actually got two examples of some documentation. And I must say that this is in no way the way that you should be documenting. This is again, just one example from one educator in one setting, and this is some of their practice. Your documentation may look very different to this, and that's okay because remember there aren't any prescribed methods or ways, you really need to find the methods that work for you. But I think what I would like to highlight is it's how, it's the making the learning visible. So here in this first image, you can see that we've got a child who is drawing, and underneath we've got a reference to often people shorten these outcomes. LO5, children are effective communicators. Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media. So it's initially got that language of the outcomes, but really it's not an accurate representation of the learning for that child because where does it actually reference what that child is doing towards achieving that aspirational, bigger outcome of being an effective communicator? Whereas if we look a little bit closely, and another example here, it's just a small change in their practice that this educator has taken on, but you can see they've just gone a little bit further. So they've included a description of how that child is demonstrating the learning of the outcome. And it's a little bit hard to see, but the text in that description there is that, "This child communicated she was going to draw her family. As she drew each member of her family, she describes something significant about the picture." So she was saying things like, "She has long hair but not as long as mine." "We're wearing polka dot dresses and I'm balancing potatoes on my head," "Mum has the same hair color as me." But then the educator goes on a little bit further to say that "This child is demonstrating ways to be an effective communicator. She is using the creative arts, drawing to express her ideas and to make meaning." So it's using that language of the outcome to show how that child is working towards that. So again, that's just one example of how you can make that documentation rich and meaningful. So we're going to stop again and I'm going to stop talking for just a moment. And I guess, now we've talked about what you need to make visible in children's learning and how you can do that. We really need to think about who it's for. So who needs to see the learning in your documentation? So we've got a QR code there again, and you will be able to select and answer around, and I get there is I want just say that you choose what you think. So who do you think needs to see the learning in your documentation? And you can see on the screen there, we have a very clear winner in this. And yes, documentation is for families, but it's more than that. Documentation is for more than just families. It's a very important element to your documentation and part of your responsibility as an education and care educator is that you're meeting those regulations and that you're showing that to families the progress that children are making. But I guess it's more than that too. And I can see there are, I'd be interested to know what everyone's understanding of other is. And maybe that's something that you can talk about in your teams who are the other people that need to see your documentation. Just give everyone a few more moments to put their answers in. Yes, other, all of the above, very true. I can see that's been put into the comments there, into the Question and Answers. So on, I guess I've taken a quote directly from the NQS here. Who needs to see learning? That, "Documentation of children's experiences and their responses to the environment makes learning visible to children, educators, and families. And it promotes shared learning and collaboration. So children, educators, and families were all options. So you can see that there actually isn't just one answer. Families are very important in sharing documentation too, but it's also really important to share that with children and educators and by others. I guess my interpretation of others could be people like authorised officers who are coming to make assessments about how you're meeting or exceeding or working towards those quality standards. It could be other professionals within your community context, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a child health nurse, a representative from DCJ. It could be that it's the Kindergarten teacher at your local school and when children are transitioning to school, you're sharing information about what type of learner they are. So I guess documentation has purpose for lots of different people within our sector, but I think we'll just spend some time unpacking three. So educators, children, and families because that's our main priority when we're documenting learning. So why make learning visible for educators? Because when you make learning visible for other educators, for your colleagues and for your team, it means that when you write meaningful information about children's learning, plans for teaching and learning, and evaluating this, it helps all educators to support children's learning all children's learning. So for example, if you weren't there one day, who else would be able to implement learning for that child? If you've got it documented well, then someone else will be able to do that, someone else from your team. Another reason to make learning visible for other educators is that it allows educators to foster continuity of learning. And it can help children to transfer learning and adapt learning from one context to another. Because we all know that we all can't be everywhere all at once. It's physically impossible. But if you've got some methods in place to share learning, it means that no matter where those children go, whether it be within your service or even outside of your service, if your documentation captures the important information about their learning, then others can apply that as well. And the last reason that I can think of today that you could make learning visible for educators is that it allows educators to work collaboratively, and you can mentor each other and you can support each other to interpret and to analyse and improve your own practice. So sharing your documentation with other educators, getting some feedback, do you think this captures what this child can do? Can you add to it so that it can be clearer? So they're just a few reasons why you can share your documentation, make that learning visible for educators. What about making learning visible for children? So again, they're there. That's the centre of our practice. It's the reason why we're there and those outcomes and that impact for children. And when observing and collecting information, it's essential to create opportunities to capture children's voices and ideas. And the best way to do this and to make learning visible is actually with children themselves. And we know that when you make learning visible for children and when you include children in that learning and that analysis of learning and planning for learning and evaluating learning, it promotes their agency and it fosters those opportunities, those dispositions for learning. That's a really fancy word to say. Things like shared thinking and collaborating and all of those skills, those 21st century learning skills that children are going to be required to have as they make their journey through their lives. So when you make learning visible for children, you make opportunities for them to be a part of that. And the third stakeholder, or the third group of people that you can make learning visible for that we'll focus on today is for families and documentation for families. It's a huge part of our practice. And when making learning visible for families, it's essential to provide information that's focused on learning and growth over time. So again, back to those regulations. And I think the key thing to call out here is that it's not a description, it's not just about what children have done, it's actually capturing the learning in the documentation. So using the language of those outcomes and making decisions and professional judgments around what that child is learning and how they're progressing towards a goal or an outcome. When making learning visible for families, it also means that your access, actively seeking input from families about what their children know and understand away from your care. So what can children do at home or what can they do when they're out with their families? Because that's just as important to know that, is what they can do when they're with you. And it means inviting families to be involved in goal setting for children's learning and reviewing their progress because then families begin to understand why those early years are so important and foundational for learning for the rest of their life. I'll just, before we look at the next slide, I'll just say that unanswered questions stay, because I can see that there's a lot of questions that are building up in the box there. We will, so specific questions won't be able to be answered, but we will spend some time at the end I guess coming back to those general type questions that people might have around documentation and we'll also follow them up in that response sheet after the session. Okay, so how do you make learning visible for families? Again, this is just one way that you can do that. There are many different ways that you can make learning visible for families. And I think the other really important thing to say is that not every piece of learning can be made visible for families. It's just not possible. When you're documenting, you need to be able to find ways that you can manage and sustain your documentation. You don't become overwhelmed or overloaded with your documentation. And it's, I guess part of that is reflecting on what is important to be documented and what doesn't need to be documented because that is what's going to contribute to making that documentation manageable and sustained. So again, just one example of how one educator has made learning visible for families. It doesn't need to look this way, this is just an example. So again, that Regulation 74, sorry, 75 and 76, to make it accessible for families and to show that progress and that learning. So this educator has used photos and a written paragraph to do that. I think it's important to acknowledge that photos are a great way to document children's learning. And sometimes a photo on its own is enough, especially if there's been lots of communication around how a child is working towards a goal or how they're showing their progress once, one photo or a series of photos can really capture that. But I guess if you are sharing just a photo, is that enough? Because, and it's what you say or what you talk about with that family in that photo. Because if it only described the play that was happening and the name of the outcome, then it wouldn't make that learning visible for families. So, you know, if you were just describing children like to play puzzles and do drawings, and this is important because of Learning Outcome 4, Learning Outcome 5. It's a great start, but it doesn't actually show the learning. And what you need to consider is what method do you have in place where you can describe the child's interests, their strengths, and the progress that they make towards achieving those outcomes and the learning that's happening. So this educator has, I think this was part of like a summary, so a summative documentation piece. Over a period of time they had identified that this child was becoming a strong and effective communicator. She can ask for help from educators and love to role play using dramatic play. She enjoys small group interactions with peers and in particular funny rhymes. In the photos, so to the left, she's followed the rhyme under the web and she's used symbols in her drawing to link to the storyline. So there's that key documentation that demonstrates that learning to that family and makes it visible. And again, this is just one way of doing it. It might be that information that's shared in that green box. For you, it might be a conversation that you have with a family. And that conversation might be at arrival or at pick up time. You might be able to talk to a family about how a child is demonstrating some learning. Or it might be that you make a phone call, you know that the parents know that there's a child that's been particularly focused on a goal and all of a sudden you can see that they've made this great progress and that you make that phone call and you communicate that learning to that family. It doesn't always need to be a written observation or a written piece of documentation. That's just one way of of doing that. And I think it, there're really unreasonable expectation, that every photo and every moment that you capture would be shared with families that way. It would make that documentation load very unmanageable and very unsustainable. And I guess the last part to this section is, when you're thinking about making learning visible for families and reflecting on your practice around documentation for families, maybe it's a good opportunity for you to think about if you share a daily, "this is what we did today" summary. So remember that you do need to make the program and learning accessible to families and lots of services do this in a daily summary. And for some contexts, that's a great way of doing that. But it's important that you know why, why you are doing that. And does that summary really capture a learning that happened, the learning that has happened in a day. So if you're, you know, if you have that type of system in place, you might like to think about why, what are your reasons for sharing it this way? And do you know if the families like it? Most families do, but when they are looking at that and when they're reflecting on their child's day, is the learning visible or is it just a description? You really need to think about how you're going to promote children's learning to their families. Does it have meaning for individual children and their families? Because we know that for some children, for whatever reason it might be, they can't be part of that sharing. So how do you meet the needs of those families? And I guess as a teacher that's been in the classroom, is it the best use of my time? You know, I've been there, I've been there at 2:30 in the day thinking about how am I going to get this out to families who are going to be arriving within the next half hour? Is it taking my time away from the children? Is it the best use of my time? And is it meeting the needs of that sharing and making learning visible? So it's certainly not saying that this is something that you shouldn't be doing. For many, many services, it works, and it works for many families. But do you have a good understanding of why you are doing it and how you're sharing that information with your families. I'm very mindful of our time and I can see we have about 10 minutes left. So I guess it's time to begin to think about everything that I've talked about today and critically reflecting on your practice. So really, thinking about what's being said today. I would encourage everyone that's been listening today and that is ready to take some time to reflect on how they document and what they document. Maybe these are the steps that you'd like to follow. What will be documented? Because not every moment can be captured. How will you decide what's important for a child or a group of children? What will be the focus of your documentation? It can be the first step. The next step in your reflection could be how. How will that documentation be recorded? We've talked about some of the methods and there were many different options there. You might have some more. It might be photos, observations, the child's voice. How do you collect that background information for families? The next thing that you might like to consider when you are reflecting on your practice is, how will it be presented? What will you do with that information to make it accessible, meaningful, and understandable to those key stakeholders, to children, to other educators, to families, to people that are coming into your service to see and you can showcase your practice. What will you do to ensure that's being presented in the best way possible? How will the documentation reflect the individual? Because remember, documentation needs to show the learning and it needs to show what children can do, what they know, what they understand, and what in your documentation will communicate that. And last of all, how will the documentation showcase the learning? Is it a quality, is it rich and meaningful documentation or is the focus on a quota? You're just collecting these pieces of information because you know you need to reach a target, but is that information you're collecting, showing the learning for children and for groups of children? So these might be some questions that you take time to consider on your own. It might be some questions that you take to your team or to a colleague or maybe a mentor or a mentee that you have and spend some time really having a clear understanding of why you are doing what you are doing and how you are doing it and how you're showing the learning in your documentation. Okay, so we're nearly at the end, but I guess now it's an opportunity for you maybe to share some documentation practices that work for you. So if you have a practice or if you have a strategy or if you have a way of making documentation really effective, you can scan the QR code and it will take you to a text box and you'll be able to just enter some of your thoughts and ideas around documentation. While you are doing that, I'll just take a moment to have a look at the questions that we can answer in our next five minutes. So I can see lots and lots of suggestions and coming up photos, videos, group observations, great. It's a great way to make it sustainable and manageable for educators because we know that our time is so stretched and it's so valuable. So what strategy can you use? Things like observations, conversations, a reflective journal. Yes, that's a great way to doing it with the children. Perfect. Because it means that you're capturing their voice in that and you are demonstrating to some learning to them as well. And they can have a good understanding of what their own learning is. Learning stories, jotting. So I can see lots of people using things like digital platforms, daily reflection, diaries. Work smarter, not harder. Absolutely. Really easy to say, sometimes really difficult to apply, but this is a good opportunity for you to actually maybe pause and think about some of the things that we've talked about today and reflect on why you document in certain ways and what is it achieving. If it's really unachievable and those expectations are too high, what can you do about it? Who do you talk to about it? Yes, mixture of anecdotal observations all in one, photos, videos, jottings, recording conversations, a fortnightly curriculum. Yes, definitely. There's nothing that says that planning cycle needs to happen weekly. It might be something that could happen in a day, across a month, across lots of months. You might have many planning cycles happening alongside each other at the same time. That can be one way that you can think about how your time can be spread and shared evenly across your work. Yes, so displaying those work samples and capturing the children's voices in that display, making that learning visible to whoever's coming into your service. Lots of people talking about floor books. So yes, there are some really great examples there. All right, so what we might do is just keep moving. And I can see, I've got my colleague Bridget here today and Bridget's been working really hard behind the scenes and she's been looking at the questions in the question box. Hi, Bridget.

- Hi Nicki, lots of questions.

- Yes. So what we're going to do is I've, there's some links to some resources around documentation and each of those QR codes can be scanned and you can take them to the link, it will take you to the information. So we've got an e-newsletter from the Early Childhood Resource Hub, produced in collaboration with ACECQA. We have unpacking the planning cycle there. So another resource for you to dive into that a little bit further. The ACECQA Fact Sheet, guidelines for documenting children's learning. And I have to do a little bit of promotion here. So I also put a link to the Early Learning website and on that website there are, there's a catalogue of professional learning and included in that, is some information around documentation. There's also podcasts and all sorts of resources there that can support your practice in the early years. So while you are just accessing those resources, Bridget's going to read out some of those key questions that got answered today and I'll do my best to answer them live. If we don't get to your question and if it had lots of likes, and it's been promoted up, then we can reply to it in our response sheet as well. So Bridget, I might hand over to you.

- Thanks, Nicki. So quite a few questions about using technology to document and whether that is sufficient, whether hard copy is also required and just using those different platforms to communicate with families.

- Yes, so I think when you are thinking about digital platforms, this is really around accessibility. Who is that digital platform accessible to? Because if it meets all of those accessible needs, then I would imagine that you are meeting those regulations and those requirements. However, who in your service, whether it be children, families, other educators, authorised officers, whoever it may be, is it access to everybody? Because if it isn't, how are you going to solve that? And it might be that you need to have hard copies as well. So I guess there isn't one answer to that question. It's really deciding, as a service, how are you meeting those regulations using those platforms. Excuse me. And can you be confident in saying that, yes, I am or do you need other strategies in place as well?

- Thanks, Nicki. A more specific question, but just explaining curriculum and program and whether they're the same thing. A few likes on that one.

- Yes. Yes, absolutely. So your curriculum is everything that happens within your day and within curriculum is your program. So maybe you'd like to think about it that way, but definitely, I know that there are a lot of services that swap out that word to that your curriculum, your curriculum decision making is informing your programming as well. So very, very similar terms there.

- Okay. Trying to choose now.

- [Nicki] It's all right.

- Some suggestions for educators who might struggle with documentation in written form for various reasons and maybe different methods that could be used and whether that's appropriate?

- Yes, absolutely. Again, those regulations don't actually prescribe that documentation must be written. So what other methods can you use to capture the learning? So remember it's not about the way it's presented, it's about the content that's presented. So how, what method can you use to demonstrate children's learning? And we know that you don't have to write something down to communicate something. You might use a recording, it could be a series of images and you're taking language from the outcome, you know, you're using different ways to demonstrate that learning. It doesn't need to be that written observation. And I guess it's a way of educators really playing to their own strengths and knowing how they can do that in different ways and acknowledging that individuals can be very creative and can do that in different ways.

- And maybe with the 30 seconds left, Nicki, if you have any words of wisdom on engaging families to actually read, I guess, and engage with the documentation or the information provided?

- Yes.

- Challenges.

- Yes, it's a challenge. I think that's probably maybe one thing you could say that is a challenge across the entire sector because you're always going to find groups of people for whatever reason that are really challenging to engage with. So what strategies are you using? Are you expecting that all of the families in your service are going to engage the same way or do you need to tailor your approach a little bit more? Is it that a lot of your engagement with some families is over the phone or are you expecting that all families will come to a set time or a set meeting with one of your educators, but how are you going to reach out to that family that can't get there for some reason? And what are you actually telling the families when you are talking to them? Are you just giving a broad general description of their day and, you know, they've had a great day or are you actually talking about the learning and the progress that their child is making and is that important to them as well? So really understanding what families are looking for when they are talking to you and when they're wanting information about their child. Because what you might see as a priority could be very different for a family for many different reasons. So having a shared understanding around what you're working towards. And I think if you can consider that then some of those families that are a little harder to engage with you might have some more success, yes Okay. So I'm really mindful of the time. And I know we've gone just a few moments over. I would like to say thank you to everyone for coming today and I know it's not always easy to make time to move away from working with children in the room or in the playground, but it's also really important that you make some time for some critical reflection. So thanks for joining and this will be made available to you in, after this session. Thanks.

- [Kate] Good morning to everyone who's joining us for today's session, and welcome. We're just going to wait a couple of minutes to allow everybody to join. We've got good numbers for today, so we'll be starting in just a couple of minutes. For those of you who are joining now, welcome. We're just waiting a couple of minutes until we get started. You'll notice that your microphone, camera, and chat functions have been disabled for this session. We'll tell you a bit more about that shortly, but that's just due to the high volume of participants we'll have in today's session. So welcome, and we'll get started shortly. Good morning, all. I can see the numbers are still climbing of participants. Welcome to today's session. We're very excited to have you here. We will be starting very shortly.

- Great. Thanks very much for that, Kate. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the New South Wales Department of Education's webinar on critical reflection. My name's Belinda Wakeford and I'm one of the state operations managers in our quality assurance and regulatory services, which sits within the early childhood education. You may also know us as the reg authority. As we begin this morning, we have a video we'd like to share with some children acknowledging country.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge Aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land. We promise.

- Great. Thank you. Thanks for that, Kate, and I'd like to acknowledge that I'm meeting you today from the beautiful Dharawal land on the south coast and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which you're all joining us from today and pay my respects to elders past and present. I extend that respect to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and colleagues that are joining us today. So to get us started, a few housekeeping bits. As Kate mentioned, your microphone and video and chat functions have been disabled for the webinar today. During the registration process, you were invited to send through some of your questions, and we had a huge response to this and received well over 300 questions from the group, which is fantastic. For that reason, we deliberately made a decision to close off the Q&A function just for today. What we have done though is use some of those common themes from your questions to inform what we've included in today's session, and we'll talk directly to a few of those popular questions towards the end. Please do note though, the Q&A function will remain in place for the remaining Roadshows. We acknowledge some of you would like to know how do we document to get exceeding. I have that question frequently when during A&R, and we've been asked directly, what do the department want to see? What are the officers looking for? And I just want to start by saying the purpose of critical reflection is to support your continuous improvement journey to enhance your service quality and practice, leading to improved outcomes for children, and that's what we're going to be focusing on today. This is not about us as a reg authority. It's about you and your service. If by the end of this morning's session we haven't been able to address your question, there will be further opportunities for you to connect with our team, and we'll share details about how to make contact later in the session. For any questions that you might have relating to your service operation, you can also contact our information and inquiries team who are able to support you. I'm just going to get lovely Kate to pop the details into the chat for you now. We're also going to be using a few interactive features during today's session, including Menti. Hopefully you're familiar with that if you've been to some of the other Roadshows this week. So can I please ask you to have your phone or another device to scan and have that ready? The code will pop on the screen so that you can interact with us, and finally, as you would've been informed when you came in, this session is being recorded and you'll be provided with information about how you can revisit the session once our Roadshows have completed. So today, we will look at reflection versus critical reflection, and our focus is to understand the difference between reflective practice and critical reflection in order to support your continuous improvement journey. So what is critical reflection, when is reflection more of an evaluation, and how does critical reflection drive your practice and quality improvement journey? This morning, we'll hear from Alison, who's one of our experienced authorized officers, as well as a service leader from the sector who has kindly joined us this morning to share with you their critical reflection journey, and we're hoping after today's session that you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of critical reflection, and importantly, how this might drive your quality practices. We know critical reflection is part of the National Quality Standard. If we look within Quality Area 1, Element 1.3.2 speaks directly to critical reflection of children's learning and development. Critical reflection is also one of the three themes that services need to demonstrate at the standard level to be rated exceeding the NQS. Some of the participants online with us today submitted questions around what's the difference between critical reflection in relation to 1.3.2 at the element level and critical reflection as one of the exceeding themes, and we weren't surprised to see this question come through commonly, as we know that this causes, broadly, some confusion across the sector. We acknowledge it can be confusing with the same terminology that's used for both. So I guess to look at what the difference is, I think I need to start by noting what's the same, and that is they both require critical reflection which involves closely examining all aspects of events and experiences from different perspectives. Critical reflection outlined in Element 1.3.2 is about how educators critically reflect specifically on children's learning and development, both as individuals and in groups, to drive the program and their practice. Some examples of how we focus on children's learning and development is through reflection in action, such as altering experiences where they're not, our children not engaging, or adapting the program to include all children, rather than adapting a child's routine or requirements to fit the program. We may also document critical reflection of the program and our practices by analysing our teaching strategies to determine if they're supporting our learning goals that we've created for individual children, or analysing if group experiences and learning goals are being achieved. So as you can see, critical reflection in this capacity has a focus on how children's learning is being evaluated and analysed and what changes are made to support their learning and development within the program. Exceeding theme two, practices informed by critical reflection, involves a deep level of regular and ongoing analysis, questioning, and thinking that goes beyond evaluation and review. Critical reflection informs practice when the continuous reflection of all educators individually and together informs decision making and drives continuous quality improvement. It's about the how and the why we do what we do and it's a universal theme that can be applied across all standards of the NQS, and it's not specific to children's learning and development per se. I'm now going to introduce you to Alison Hendry. Alison is one of our amazing authorised officers in the continuous improvement team, and Alison came to the department with extensive industry experience. She has a clear passion for critical reflection and quality improvement practices that are informed by theoretical and philosophical research in this area. Welcome, Alison. Thanks for joining me this morning.

- Okay. Hi, everyone. Great to see so many of you participants are online with us this morning. Before we deep dive into critical reflection and what that actually means, I'd like to hear from you all. I'd like to hear, what do you think critical reflection involves? So we're all going to use Menti now, if you could. Could you tell me in a few words what you think is involved in critical reflection? You can use the QR code on your screen or go to menti.com and enter the code that is on the top of your screen there. Then type in a few words, and I'll give you a few minutes. We'd love to see your thoughts and it is anonymous, so please feel free to join in. Great. I can see some of our words coming in and they are fabulous. A lot of people are saying analysing, which is exactly right. Thinking. Oh, I think a lot of you are really on the right track there. Look at all these responses. Fabulous. Thank you so much, everybody, for providing these responses. That's great. I can see that analysing is clearly something that's at the heart of what a lot of people believe is involved in critical reflection. Fabulous. Okay. So now we're at a point where we're going to look at what is the difference between reflection and critical reflection. What we want to understand is what is reflection and when does reflection transform into that critical reflection space. So theorists tell us that reflection is deliberate. It's conscious. It's a way of making sense of what we've been doing, and realistically, it's a way that we learn from the experience. John Dewey, who I have affectionately named the grandfather of critical reflection in education, most famously said, "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." So if reflection is about meaning making, then what's critical reflection? Again, theorists tell us that critical reflection is the relationship between theory and practice or theory and experience. ACECQA reminds us that critical reflection really is multifaceted. It's multilayered. So it's no wonder we all, at times, find it hard to break this down and have a really good understanding of what's involved and then how we engage in the process. This is not easy. So if you find critical reflection smooth sailing, you might not be examining deeply enough. Critical reflection involves critical thinking and multiple perspectives. There's purpose in it and it's used to support enhancements or change or refining practice. Critical reflection is the link between thinking and doing, and my favourite part of these theorists' quotes is that "critical reflection can truly be transformative." This is where we see it come alive. Maybe potentially Freire sums it up best when he notes that "Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise theory simply becomes 'blah, blah, blah,' and practice is pure activism," but I'm sure you all want to know what the grandfather of critical reflection will tell us. Well, he tells us that critical reflection requires active, persistent and careful consideration of the conclusions that we draw and the knowledge base that we've relied upon to come to those conclusions. So if we now know what reflection is and what critical reflection is, let's see what it looks like when we put them side by side and try to identify what is the difference. We know that reflection is a very practical, in a very practical everyday sense is looking back on an experience to learn from it. Therefore, we know that reflection is a means of building knowledge. However, we know that there's a change to reflection to make it critical. The Australian Institute of Radiography has actually given us a very simple way of looking at when that change from reflection to critical reflection occurs. We know that critical reflection is a process of analysing, considering and questioning experiences within a broad context. Critical reflection can therefore be broken down into a continuous cycle involving the process of practice, reflection, viewing these two elements through a lens of theory, and then reflection or analysis on what we've discovered in that process. From a pictorial view, this ongoing and continuous cycle looks like this. If we start at practice, this is all about the things that we are mostly doing on a daily basis. We're noticing. We're observing what we're feeling. We're thinking about what we're doing. It's really about evaluating. For example, did the environment set up support the learning outcomes? Were the children engaged? Did the new routine work for the morning session, or are families able to understand and access the rostering structure? The next step is also probably something that many of us are doing in terms of that reflection step. We're recording. We're examining. We're confronting the situation we're experiencing and challenging why we're doing what we're doing. We may be writing in a journal or discussing at team meetings why something isn't working and collectively decide to make a change. For example, does the environment allow for children's agency? Collectively, we decide that it doesn't, as children are unable to access resources independently, so we decide to add an open bookshelf so that they can house resources that children can independently obtain. The element that needs to be added to this cycle in order for this to become critical reflection is theoretical influences. The reason why it's important that theory or philosophical influences become part of this ongoing continuous cycle of critical reflection is because these perspectives will underpin the why of what we're doing. It will guide the change. It informs the practice or informs the shaping of a new practice through research or exploring theoretical perspectives. We might read various articles or guiding documentation, such as recognised publications or other sources sharing best practice. We might meet and talk with some subject matter experts or attend professional workshops to learn more about the area that we're critically reflecting on. When we put together our original practice or evaluation and reflection with theory, we're able then to make an informed analysis. This informed analysis is another form of reflection whereby we could rewrite or re-evaluate or critique or challenge those original beliefs that we held or the original way that we did things in order to close the loop and inform our ongoing practice. Realistically, the process of critical reflection needs to take the first two steps of practice and reflection and review those through a framework of theory or philosophical influences in order to analyse critically what we're doing now and what we might do in the future. As I said, the magic happens when we close the loop and use our critical reflection or analysis based on theory to inform, improve or change our practice. As such, the outcome of our critical reflection, or simply the results, might include an uplift of practice or a creation of a new practice, creation of a new policy, a change to the environment, or a refining or affirmation of current practices. It's only when we close this loop that the process of critical reflection has been completed. These outcomes are important and they are examples that demonstrate how your service practice has been informed by critical reflection, which aligns to the exceeding theme two under the NQS. I would just like to give you some additional examples from published research and also recognised bodies who have tried to clarify the difference between reflection and critical reflection. So Dr. Jan Fook, who is an internationally renowned scholar widely recognised for her work on critical social work, practice research and critical reflection, tells us that the difference between reflection and critical reflection lies in that analysis step that we've been talking about, as this brings together the theory with our original reflection, and together, there is likely to be some transformative change, change in our behaviour or change in our practice. Effectively, this is an informed change of practice. Similarly, ACECQA reminds us that critical reflection occurs when educators consider, question, analyse, research, utilize recognised guiding documentation, and re-evaluate planning and decision making that informs practice and process. ACECQA also reminds us that the concept or culture of ongoing self-assessment and continuous improvement, as we've just viewed on the previous slides, the continuous nature of the cycle of critical reflection, all of which ultimately aims to lead to improved outcomes for children, families, educators and service leaders.

- Oh, thanks very much, Alison. That was really great. I think that summarises that really well, and really key for me is that connection of theoretical influences, or simply put, who and what's guiding our practice on our reflection or evaluations and then challenging these. So that's great. Thank you very much for that insight, Alison. I'm now going to introduce Bernice Mathie-Morris, who is the director of early learning at Bomaderry Community Preschool. Good morning, Bernice, and thank you for joining us. It's really lovely to have you today.

- Morning. It's lovely to be present and to be able to have the chance to share some of our practices that we engage with at Bomaderry Community Preschool. Before I start, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm meeting with you today on the lands of the Dharawal people on the beautiful south coast of New South Wales. So yes, I'd just like to start by saying at Bomaderry Community Preschool, we love to engage in critical reflection. I think that comes back to, and reflection, it comes back to our love of learning. So we always say that it's important to involve children and impassion children to have that love of learning, but as adults too, it's really, really important. So that practice of reflection and critical reflection for adults is something that continues to drive us and to want us to learn more, which then helps us, as in a practice, to drive that critical reflection and also those outcomes and that best practice. So at Bomaderry Community Preschool, we reflect every day, but we do choose, you can't possibly choose everything that you reflect on to critically reflect on. As Alison has said, and Belinda, there is so many things in that process, so you can't engage deeply with every single little thing that you want to reflect on but choose something that you think will have the greatest engagement with your staff, but also something that's going to create those quality outcomes for your children and your families and your whole centre. So we too have a great connection, I guess, with John Dewey and his work. So we always say we just don't learn from doing, from that experience. We learn from reflecting deeply on those experiences that we engage with every single day. So today, I'm just going to share with you two questions that we have recently used to deeply critically reflect on and to walk you through the steps of how we have done that, and every centre, every program will look very different. This is just something that we find works for us and it guides us through in a very, well, I guess, a very organized space to get to the outcomes that we want to get to. So if we could have the next slide, so two of the questions that we've recently engaged with in with critical reflection was, why is it important to understand the conceptual mathematics development as educators and teachers in the early years program, and how do aesthetics and relationships within an early education program impact on the cognitive, relational functioning of educators, children and families? So we also, we always start with practice. What does that look like for us in our service? So that is educators noticing, so noticing what's going on with the children, the families, our environments, our interactions with each other. The feelings. How is everyone feeling? That is a really big part, so making sure we're taking note of that as well. How are the children feeling? How are the families feeling? As educators, what are we feeling? How do we approach that? Then questions, lots of questions. We always encourage everybody to question each other, and it's not seen as a negative in our service. It's a positive. So I will often walk through our rooms and be with the children and the other educators and say, "Tell me more about this," and we really encourage that with all educators to be able to do that. Our wonderings, share our wonderings, and they are really valid in this process as well, and we also ask educators to reflect on their own teaching strategies, the resources and the environment. Conversations that we have are really important in the process as well, and then our intentional and spontaneous programming. So there's so much that goes into our days that helps us inform and to be able to critically reflect as we move through. So you wonder what, you say, "Well, how do we document all of this?" And you can't possibly be able to document every single thing, but we do, the next step for us is that reflection step. So we have something called a reflective document and it is a Google Doc that we just use and everyone can have access to that, and we all have different colours and everyone writes in that and we make comments on each other. So that's where we document our noticing, our feelings, our questions, our wonderings. We also then bring them to a team meeting and then to our whole team meeting and discuss every single one of those. Everyone has a voice, and then we also use, obviously, those conversations with families and children, and we document that in there. So it's not a formal document. It's just something that we add to. We might think of something and just quickly write, type it in there, and the beauty of a Google Doc is that everyone can see that and have access to it. So we're constantly thinking about that. I encourage also in that reflection process is evaluations and critiquing on our planning and our documentation as well. So anything that we're thinking about within that reflection evaluation, we pop into that Google Doc as well. Educator meetings is a great time to have great, robust conversations around what we have written, what we have thought, and what we have been discussing in that critical reflection document, and robust conversation sometimes can be really challenging. I will acknowledge that this process is not an easy process, but if you look at it as a point of being able to move forward and I always get so inspired because I know I'm going to learn more. So that's why it is something that's very passionate for me and for our team. Can we have the next slide, please? Thank you. So then, as Alison and Belinda have talked about before, we move on to that next step of theory. This is where a lot of people go, "Oh, this is a little bit too hard. This is really challenging," but it's not. It's inspiring, and as Alison and Belinda has said before, there's so many things within this theory section that we can tap into and learn so much from. So we use lots of different readings, academic journals, sector publications, Department of Education, Bedrock, Pedagogy+, Rattler, textbooks. We have a lot of university students that come to us, so we also tap into lots of resources like that. So what we often do is, as educational leader, we will choose something and it might be three or four documents and we share that with the whole team and they reflect on that and then bring that to a staff meeting. Another great way is to connect with your colleagues at conferences, at webinars, in-house presentations, from sector leaders, other colleagues that have a passion in a space. So it could be as simple as when we talked about aesthetics in our space, we got someone to come in and talk to us about the importance of that. Engaging within our community. Not all of us live close to a university, but the use of webinars and connection through the internet has created a whole other world for us. So we engage as much as we possibly can with universities in projects. So we did a mass project with Wollongong University. So put yourself out there. Make connection with those universities, and they're always doing beautiful projects and really engaging projects that I think your teams will learn so much from, and then once we've taken that, all of that theory, then we link it to our reflections, previous reflections, and our wonder, that first stage of reflection and practice. Then we put it all together. So that analysis, how do we do that? So we come together, as I said, at that team meeting and we discuss the most important questions . What did we learn and what did we get from all of those readings, from those engagements with other professionals? Is there anything that we need to change? If so, how and how are we going to do that? Is there any policies that need to change as a space in there as well? Environment changes. Is there anything that links to our environment that we need to change? And then we make some decisions around what we're going to do to move forward as a result of that whole reflection process and our practice and then engaging with theory, because often when we engage with that theory, there's so many things that come up that we have not been, we did not know, and so many people have very different opinions and thoughts. I think the most important thing with that is to make sure that you're reading some great, reputable documents that are something that you can rely on. So that's another just important little tip. So then we make those decisions, and some of the easy ways to document that in terms of having that, I guess, that documentation so that you can share that with the department when it comes to assessment and rating, we always record on audio, on iPods, and we keep that critical reflection document. We always save all the readings that we've done and just annotate them. It doesn't have to be any formal documentation, but just annotate. Keep all your staff meeting records, all of those types of things and all of that is just then available. It becomes part of your everyday practice and then it's available for anyone to see when they come in and you can share that with them. I would say it doesn't, sometimes it takes a long time. It doesn't mean you have to critically reflect in two weeks. Sometimes it might be months, so enjoy the journey. That's what I would say. Enjoy the journey of critical reflection, because it is something, once you really start getting into it, you become very passionate about it. It challenges you, but you get to the space where you just keep wanting to go because you keep learning so much more. So thank you. I hope that I have been able to shed a little bit of light on how that critical reflection can become an integral part of your journey and that it can be something that you can easily achieve.

- That's wonderful, Bernice. Thank you so much for sharing with us really great examples of how your service engages with critical reflection, and I'm sure that many of our colleagues joining us online have found this really beneficial. I think it's really interesting to see in your practice and reflection subject areas some of the practical things that your educators, some of the educators online would be able to recognise and relate to. So you've mentioned about observations and evaluations and looking at your teaching strategies and interactions, but also the use of the collaborative documentation used to support your critical reflection. It sounds like that Google Doc work is working really well for your team.

- It certainly does. It's something that was a little bit of a adjustment for some people that had never used a Google Doc before, but it's very easy to use. It's just very versatile, so everyone can have access to it. Everyone can see in current time as people write in it and it's not a critical thing that we go, oh, that, you don't have to worry about spelling and grammar. It's just writing it. So it just takes that pressure off everybody.

- Beautiful, I love it, and you made really clear how theory is recognized as an important part of the process together what the end result or action, and I really loved hearing about your overall approach. I can see the excitement and passion that you've shown us would be inspiring for your team. I literally think I could listen to you all day, Bernice. So thanks so much for joining us. That was really, really informative.

- Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

- Lovely. Okay, so we've covered a lot of things this morning. We're just going to move on now. It's time to get a bit of a pulse check to see what we now know about the difference between reflection and critical reflection. If I can just have the next slide, please. Thank you. So you won't need, oh, I'm going to give you three scenarios. So I'll share these with you and I'm going to ask you to use the poll that's on your screen. It'll just appear. You won't need to use your device for this one. I'm going to give you the scenarios and ask you to identify and think about each example to tell us whether you feel that it's an example of reflection or critical reflection. So we'll have that pop up. The poll will just appear on the screen. Thanks so much to the lovely support team who are doing an amazing job in the background there today for me, So the first scenario is during Assessment and Rating, a service shares their daily critical reflection sheet, which includes evaluations of the daily program, such as routine times and placement of furniture and layout of experiences. The sheet is also used to inform where experiences may be set out the next day, where additional supervision may be needed, or what the experiences are that are not being utilised. So I'm just going to get that poll up for you. So if you can use that to let us know whether you think this is an example of reflection or critical reflection. Great. Thanks so much. Just give everyone a moment to have a little look at that. Gosh, we've had a good, big group on today, which is great to see. Okay. How did we go with this one, Alison?

- Okay. So Belinda, this is an example which highlights evaluated reflection, where the daily happenings are noticed and observed. While the program is evaluated and used to guide future learning opportunities, placement of both resources and supervision and engagement of children, it does not include any theory-based analysis that's being used to change, shape or uplift practice. Something to think about, if you're using a form or document with the term critical reflection in the title, it doesn't necessarily ensure that critical reflection is occurring. This scenario is a scenario demonstrating reflection.

- Excellent, thank you, and we'll move on to our second poll question. Wonderful. Thank you. So during an Assessment and Rating visit, an authorised officer asks to see evidence that supports a stated key practice, that is, that indicates that critical reflection has been completed on changing the service programming template. So the ed leader at the service explained that the educators decided the programming template was no longer working for them and they've chosen to move to using an online programming application. The authorised officer asked what process was undertaken in changing that template, and the ed leader advised that one of the educators who'd been on a prac placement saw the online programming application and that service was awarded exceeding in Quality Area 1, so the team decided to change over to the application as well. I'm just going to get the poll to pop up for you. If you could let us know, do you think this is an example of reflection or has it moved to critical reflection? And that will just pop up for you in a moment. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. Where are we at? Excellent. Our poll's being quite tricky and putting all three up at once this morning, and that's okay, showing our flexibility and adaptability.

- That's right.

- So how did we go with this one, Alison? Where are we landing with this?

- There's some good results here, and I've got to say, I think people are starting to, are understanding what is involved with reflection and critical reflection. However, scenario number two or poll question two highlights reflection where a change of practice has occurred, although that change of practice appears to come purely from an operational decision and it's not driven by any theory-based reflection or discussion on practice and there's no evidence of any analysis occurring. So whilst a change did occur in practice, it wasn't driven through that theory and analysis, so this is an example of reflection.

- Excellent. Thank you, Alison, and our last one, I think some of you might have already completed this one, but I'm going to go through it anyway for those playing along in order. During the Assessment and Rating visit, a service explained that they're on a journey to embed inclusive practice, which was instigated when a child enrolled with mobility restrictions. So the educators hired and trialled specialised equipment that the child would need to assess their accessibility and barriers and identify barriers to learning. They met with the child's family and their specialists to develop strategies for inclusion, and the educators attended a workshop and consulted current research to expand their knowledge on inclusive practice, and they reviewed and updated the inclusive practice policy. Through the journey, a broader understanding of inclusive practice developed and a case study was completed on how the service and families understood inclusive practice and how this is demonstrated at their service daily. The case study was reviewed at quarterly interview intervals to ensure it's relevant, robust, and ongoing changes of practice were analysed. So I'll just get the last poll up there, final question for you. What are we all thinking? Looks like we're nailing it there, Alison.

- I completely agree. That's some really clear results there from the audience, from who's listening in. That's great. Yeah.

- Okay, great. So what are your thoughts on this, Alison, reflection or critical reflection?

- Well, first of all, I'm going to say excellent job for everybody. Thank you for participating in the polls, and this is our last scenario question. A lot of you actually answered that correctly. So scenario three is an example of critical reflection. This example highlights critical reflection through the approach of practice reflection, theory reflection and analysis. This critical reflection also has the component of being ongoing, with a review of the change of process practice undertaken, a review of policy and procedure, furthering educators' understanding, and supporting the inclusion of every child. Your critical reflections may not all be this long or they might not all look like this, but it's about what is relevant and reflects the practices in your service. You may notice this scenario refers to a case study which was relevant to this particular scenario. That's not always the case as each critical reflection will be unique to the topic.

- Great, thanks, Alison, and for those of you who may be still a little unsure, I think you'll find this next part of the session will be really helpful. We're now going to address some of those really popular questions I mentioned earlier that came through with your registrations, and I absolutely know that we're not going to be able to get to all of them due to the sheer volume that we received. However, as mentioned earlier, you can reach out to our team following today's session to talk about your own service and experience, and I will get their details popped up in the chat for you in a moment. So Alison, are you ready for me to run through some of our top three popular questions?

- Yes, I'm ready. Let's go. Thanks, Belinda.

- So multiple services have asked, where do we start and how long does it take to complete the critical reflection process?

- Yes, this is a great question actually and one we get often. So critical reflection will often start organically or it may require a conscious decision to identify opportunities. It may derive from highlighting something in your practice or your reflections. It may be something you choose to complete in response to a critical incident or to address feedback provided. Most commonly, critical reflection is undertaken by services to inform better practice or to uplift practice or to make a change to the environment. Additionally, services may choose to complete critical reflection to align their practices against the National Quality Framework. As we discussed earlier, critical reflection often starts in the noticing or observing of a practice or a situation. It may be about paying attention to what you're feeling and what you're doing. Often it's evaluative and this may lead to deeper questioning about the practice or situation. This is often how the critical reflection process starts in a service. Because critical reflection is unique to each service and each service context, how long it takes will be dependent on the processes the service undertakes. So some critical reflections may take less time than others as everyone's aligned to the outcomes of the critical reflection and in the analysis and a change or an enhancement in practice is adopted and understood quickly. Other critical reflections may take on a life of their own and require a case study or research paper to document the depth of the analysis and reflection. Again, it will be unique to your service and what your critical reflection involves. In terms of how long this takes to complete, it's important to remember that critical reflection is a continuous cycle. So in that sense, have a natural endpoint.

- Excellent, thanks, Alison, and one of the other frequently asked questions was, how do we get people involved and on board to support that critical reflection journey?

- Yes, so, one way is that we need to create a safe and positive work culture that allows for educators to be able to be honest and open and vulnerable when unpacking reflections on practice or feedback. Unless you have this underlying culture of safety, you'll find it's difficult to get to an authentic place where true critical reflection occurs. We need to be really clear and be able to communicate easily to each other what are the benefits of the process. Think about how you get the buy-in and what's in it for the educators. Ultimately, you'll see an uplift in your own practice and you'll be part of the fabric that underpins the practices that demonstrate quality at your service. Now, we're all different and you need to find what sparks the interest in your educators in the same way you reflect on what sparks the interest in your children. Acknowledge that your team will all have different learning and communication styles and how we gel these together to support an inclusive process. For some, this will be quite structured, but for other educators, it may be more informal. Services may find the process of critical reflection runs smoother when there's someone who takes responsibility within your service or organisation to ensure that the service community is working through this critical reflection cycle. As service leaders, it's important that we role model behaviours we want to see reflected. When I was at a service recently, they talked to me about how critical reflection has underpinned the journey of transformative change that they've been on for the last few years. This service shared with me that the initial seed of the transformation occurred through honest and open reflection on where each educator's strengths lie. Through this reflection, different educators started to discover a passion or a curiosity about different areas of the service delivery. These educators were then provided space and time to lead the critical reflection and were supported through the process of critical reflection because it was new to them. The process was broken down into small parts initially with supported individual reflections taking place, and these individual reflections then were used to influence that broader and more collaborative critical reflection that was instigated across the service, and ultimately, this led to a more empowered workforce that facilitated themselves this transformative change. I think I'd also like to say it's important that we are deliberate and purposeful and it's essential to provide time for our teams to connect with each other and with this process.

- Absolutely, I completely agree, and it's really difficult beause we are time for, but I like that you call out that it's really important to plan for that and to provide time for our teams to connect with each other in this process. So one last question that we'll have time for, and I think this will be one that people want to hear about, is how should we document critical reflection?

- Okay, so Belinda, you'll know this. This is actually one of our most asked questions, and truthfully, we can't give you a template or an example sheet on how to document your service's critical reflections. The honest answer is how you document will be unique to your service. In addition to how unique the critical reflection subject or topic potentially is, some services will start at the beginning stages of critical reflection in staff meetings or room meetings and therefore start the journey. The start of that journey may documented in meeting minutes, the agenda or summary notes. There may be evidence of the theoretical or philosophical documentation that's being used to further unpack the evaluative practice and reflection. However, this is more often than not going to be an online document or a professional development session or a conversation that's been held with a subject matter expert, and it may only be documented in the analysis notes of the critical reflection summary. Finally, the critical reflection's initial findings and changes or enhancements that have been identified may be noted in a summary document, and you heard about that earlier, but that works for Bernice and her service having a summary document. That summary document can be used as a reference point to come back to later and reassess if further changes or enhancements are needed. This reference document can then be used to support a continuous cycle of critical reflection. I'd also like to acknowledge that parts of the critical reflection process may be through conversation, and many educators ask, "How do we provide evidence that this has actually occurred?" Well, firstly, I acknowledge that may well be the case, and often is, however, this may be part of the initial reflection or evaluative practice stage of critical reflection and that critical reflection process. These conversations will lead to something and have further depth involved to them to allow for an informed change or enhancement. The conversations then become the spark that may well be noted simply in the summary of the critical reflection that's used as the reference point and may recorded as the initial seed that started that particular critical reflection journey. In regards to different methods of actually recording critical reflection, some of the ways you might consider documenting your critical reflection is in journals or mapped out and documented in services' online applications, maybe in services' unique template forms with specific probing questions to guide the reflection. Maybe it's in important improvement planning documents or even potentially through a whiteboard mind map that's been photographed to reflect back on later. There is no one way to document your journey. These are just some suggested variations. Be creative. Get others involved to ensure it's relevant to your service context. If you network with other services, have a chat and see what they use and what they find helpful. As Bernice said, enjoy the journey. What I would say is your critical reflection journey is your own. It's really important to document it in a way that's meaningful and useful to you. Ensure it's user friendly, accessible, and understood by those who are involved and those who'll be guided by it.

- Fantastic, Alison. That's great, and I think, you know, we can't give you a magic template that's going to solve it, but I love the examples that you have provided, and we heard from Bernice what works well for them for that service, and I think, as you said, be creative. Have a chat to others. Find out what works well for you and your educators at your service. So thank you for that. I think you've given those online some food for thought here, Alison.

- Thanks, Belinda.

- Okay, so let's move on. If we look at some of the words we've used today, active, analysis, research, thinking, examining, ongoing, cycle, you can see that there's not one way of describing or engaging with critical reflection. We can't give you a template, as we've just mentioned. It's not that simple. It is relevant to the individual context of your service, and we recognise, as Alison mentioned earlier, it's not an easy process, so take heart. You're not alone if you're finding critical reflection challenging, and as Alison mentioned earlier, if you are finding it easy, then perhaps you're not digging deep enough. This is not about ticking a box and I acknowledge we certainly have not answered the common question I get often is, how do I get exceeding? What this is about is supporting continuous improvement and identifying areas or opportunities for change and inform change in your service program and practice to ultimately improve the outcomes for children. We do though hope today has given you some insights in the differences between reflection, that may be more evaluative in nature, and critical reflection, and also given you some information about the continuous cycle of critical reflection and how each of these aspects of the process are important to consider and use to inform your practice. I'd like to thank you all for joining us today and for all of the questions that you provided and sent in. As I mentioned, if you'd like to make contact with our team, the details are in the chat. The information inquiries team is also available to talk to you about anything to do with your service operation, and following today's session, you will receive a link to a short survey and I'd really encourage everyone to complete this. The feedback that you share with us really does help us to provide purposeful and relevant Roadshow sessions in the future. In our last slide, as we're going, as people are leaving the session today, I'm just going to leave this up so you can see the sources of the references we've used in today's presentation and some suggested further reading. So thank you all again for joining us. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Thank you.

- So we've still got people joining. Great. Might just give it 30 more seconds before we get started, but the numbers are still increasing. Right, well welcome everybody to the asthma management in education and care services roadshow for the September 2022 roadshows. We're delighted to have Roxanne and Melinda here to present for us. Before we get started, I'd like to begin by acknowledging country. We have a video acknowledgement, but I'd also like to take a moment just to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from the lands of the Darkinjung people today, and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land and elders past and present. And we will just play the video acknowledgement of country now.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky, that covers aboriginal land. We place our hands on to our hearts to care for aboriginal land. We promise. We place our hands on the ground.

- And we'll just move on to the next slide, which we'll cover a bit of housekeeping in. So as you may have noticed, the microphone, video, and chat functions will be disabled throughout the presentation. However, you can ask us questions in the Q and A section, and there's the opportunity to hit the thumbs up button near any questions that you see that are particularly pertinent or that you would really like to see answered to up vote them. We will be using Menti during the session, which involves scanning a QR code and answering some questions. So please make sure you've got a device ready. And this session is not being recorded for future publication. With that in mind, I'd like to hand over to Melinda and Roxanne, from the Sydney Children's Hospital, and I'm getting the name wrong, Melinda and Roxanne. My apologies. Just handing over to Sydney, to Roxanne and Melinda.

- Thank you, Kate. Thanks for that, sorry. So this is Roxanne and I'm Melinda. So thanks for having us today. So we'll get going with this presentation. So Roxy will start.

- Yes, we could go to the next slide. Thank you guys for joining us. So this is asthma management in education and care services. You can move forward to the next slide. And like Kate and Melinda said, my name is Roxanne. This is Melinda. We are asthma clinical nurse consultants at Sydney Children's Hospital, and we are aiming for asthma improvement in children. Next slide. And today we are going to focus on strategies to improve the asthma management within the childcare services environment, looking at essential things like medical policy, communication plans, identifying and developing individual asthma risk minimisation plans, and ensuring effective communication between staff and parents regarding their children's asthma management.

- I'm sure Kate can see, but we're just having, sorry Kate.

- Sorry, my apologies, everyone. Josiah, could you just make sure you're sharing the slide deck, please?

- Hopefully everyone can see them. Hopefully I look small, 'cause that's what I'm aiming to do. Look very small and skinny on the screen. Okay, I think everyone can kind of see it. Yes, okay let's keep going.

- Okay, thumbs up. Okay, you have the next slide? Yes, so we're just going to do a quick ice breaker, a brief poll, if we can go to how long can we live without?

- So just scan this code guys, scan it here, and use the code, and we'll ask you the next question.

- Is that slide next slide?

- Next slide, please.

- Once you've scanned the code, can everyone see the, okay. Everyone's had a chance to scan the code?

- Fantastic.

- Excellent. Okay, so how long we without food? Well, roughly two months. I think we have one and two months, so okay.

- So, and water was, So what are we saying? Three weeks was air and one month was food.

- And if we go to the next slide, so how long can we live without water? And the answer is three days.

- Three days.

- Getting there.

- Getting there okay.

- There's a bit of an even split that one. And the last one was, how long can we live without air? Excellent, yes, four minutes. Four minutes is right. And I guess this kind of just highlights the severity of asthma and the potential severity of asthma. It's a life-threatening condition if's not managed and treated correctly. So very important.

- And you can't live without your airway, and asthma affects the airway. So it's an example of what it's like, Maybe we would breathe through a straw and pinch the end of the straw over and when we're having that cocktail, take it out of the cocktail and actually breath the straw. If you pinch the end over, that's what it feels like with someone that's having an asthma episode. They can't get the air out.

- Yes, so as you all know, I'm sure, asthma is a condition that affects the airways in the lungs. So if you visualise the airways like an upside down tree, you can see the trick here. If we, next, click on, yes. The trick here is the trunk of the tree, and then we have the branches, which are our airways, if we go along to the next slide. Yes, and this is what moves air in and out of the lungs. So next slide, please. Now a normal airway, so you can see on the left-hand side, we've got our normal airway and this consists of mucosal lining on the inside and smooth muscle tissue on the outside. And this is an example of a nice open airway, pink mucosal lining, nice, smooth, relaxed muscle. Children with asthma have what we call twitchy or sensitive airways. So when they're exposed to certain triggers, the airways react abnormally, and you can see on the right-hand side, you get muscle tightening on the outside of the airway. And then on the inside, you get swelling and inflammation and also increased mucus production there. Now all these three things contribute to narrowing of the airway as you can see, making it difficult for the air to pass through the airways and then leading to the asthma symptoms that we all know well, which is shortness of breath, wheeze, cough, and chest tightness.

- The important thing to say is not all these symptoms need to occur to indicate that someone is having an asthma episode. Please never wait for all of them. Some children can be very unique, and just experience shortness of breath and a wheeze. And also the wheeze is not a good indicator of an asthma episode, because if you've got muscle tightening really, really tight here, you can't make that whistling sound because that's how we get a wheeze, is when the airways are really tight. So a wheeze is not always a good indicator, just to let you know.

- Okay, so next slide. Now we don't know exactly what causes asthma, but asthma triggers are things that can set off or start up someone's asthma symptoms. So triggers can be different, and a child's individual triggers are really important to know, 'because this is a way that we can minimise the potential trigger and then hopefully avoid flare ups in service. So the most common trigger for children's are coughs and colds. And I guess, very difficult to avoid, but strategies to reduce the spread of virus, I guess, that you could think about are cleaning down surfaces, hand washing, regular hand washing, sanitiser available, kind of trying to get parents to consider keeping their kids at home, if they're really unwell. If they're potentially contagious, I know that's a hard thing to do as well.

- And we'd recommend also the flu vaccination too. We promote that as according to immunisation guidelines and when New South Wales health and the relevant health bodies bring that out, we'd recommend that in particular.

- Yes, and then for your more allergic asthmatics, so things to think about at house, dust mite, pollens, grasses, pet hair, that kind of thing. So when you're thinking about your service, and thinking about the outdoor areas, planting low allergen gardens, and there is a list on Asthma Australia, of low allergen plants, mowing the lawns out of hours, that kind of thing, obviously, dust minimisation. So minimising the carpet and the material curtains you have within your centre, obviously cleaning the bedding, the sheets regularly on a hot wash or putting them out in the sun.

- Yes, can I just say one thing about that? My daughter was at a childcare centre and also an out of school care service. And I noticed one of the biggest things they had were all these stuffed soft toys sitting around. And just to let you know that they are dust mite breeders and infection, in terms of a really big at risk in terms of infection control. So minimising toys, and another thing is, I think we all know, as in the early childhood sector is that children will carry around a soft bunny or a toy that they have. So it's really important that that's placed back in the child's bag. And I know there's an attachment with it, but it's really important that they don't kind of continually walk around with that, because that dust mites and infections kind of spreading to everyone. So it's really important. And washing of sheets, I would say, I'm one of those parents that would always wash my sheets weekly, but I'm sure you know parents that probably don't bring the sheets back washed or you might be lucky enough at your service not to need bedding or you might be lucky enough to have kind of a washing service there, which is great, which is the hot cycle, 50 degrees.

- That's right. Also for those high pollen, high pollution days, there is an evidence-based app out there called Air Rater, which detects the quality of the air. Also things like utilising things like air purifiers.

- Yes, there's evidence for air purifiers now that can make a difference on people with asthma. It's really important to know that dehumidifiers, there's no evidence for that now, and air ionizers are the other thing that you might go to electrical store and they'll try to push you to buy an air ionizer. We really would encourage you to buy an air purifier, but with a HEPA filter, a H-E-P-A filter, similar to what you get in your vacuum cleaners, that actually will pull the dust particles out of the environment and actually contain it into a sealed canister.

- Other triggers, I guess, that are out there are actually strong smells, so things like cleaning products, perfumes, paints can trigger an asthma episode. So kind of try and minimise, if you're needing any maintenance done, try to minimise that, you're at using paints, harsh chemicals, try and minimise that too, after hours again. They are potential triggers for asthma. Other things like smoking, obviously a big one, and smoking, or vaping smoke, it's both the same. They both trigger asthma episodes, just making sure that staff and parents are aware that the centre is a non-smoking zone. Second-hand smoke, again, can be a trigger, and can be harmful.

- And just remember, it's coming out from your pores and clothing, so whilst someone might have a break and go and have a smoke, just remember that when they come back in, they're really washing their hands. And they've almost like got like a smoker's jacket, we'd really recommend that if that was the method. The other thing is that we have a lot of issues with, is that parents driving in the cars and we know that they're not meant to be smoking. It's illegal to be smoking in the car, but they'll then drop their child at the early day care centre or the after hour school care centre. And an hour later the child will be experiencing an asthma episode. So it's really important to have that discussion with parents. If you can smell that tobacco on them, just to say, it's really important that you can change your jacket around your children. It can make a little bit of a difference.

- Another one that you may not think about, and I guess it applies also to, or maybe more so to, anaphylaxis and allergy, is checking craft supply content. So looking at potential for cross contamination, using low irritant supplies. There can also be traces of allergens in craft material. So have a think when you're using egg cotton boxes, and cereal boxes, are there children with allergies? Is this a trigger for one of your children? Have a think about that.

- Think about what you could minimise in your environment currently. Hopefully there's a few take away things there. And also think about, I mean, I know you can't move the location of your childcare service or your early childhood care service, but just remember if you are on a main road, that the particle matter that's coming from cars and the carbon dioxide and things from cars, can actually impact. So the air quality app is a really good app, because it identifies those days when the particulate matter is really high in the environment. And when we talk about that particular matter, it's the matter that's actually less than five microns that's getting right down into that small airways that we saw when we illustrated that, the look of the respiratory system.

- So we're going to go onto a scenario now.

- So you might see a QR code on the side, but...

- Yes, but you can pop in the questions and answers chat. If you have any answers that you might come up with. So Tommy Sniff is a five year old boy who's recently been enrolled in your childcare service. He is known to have frequent asthma episodes and hospitalisations in the past. He has a preventer and a reliever medication, which he takes via a spacer and his main triggers are house dust mite, pollen, colds, and flus, and occasionally exercise. So what safety strategies would you take at your centre? And if you could pop in Q and A.

- Have a think about a child in your service like this, and there are many of them that would be attending your service. So just have a little think on what you would do.

- And enrolled for the first time. Everyone is a bit shy on the name. Okay, you need to reply to that.

- Okay, we can kind of think about it.

- Anyone got any ideas they'd like to pop in the chat?

- Josiah, we can also move to the Menti screen. Yes, there we go.

- Ah, fantastic, thank you. Oh, brilliant. Okay, that's fantastic.

- Excellent.

- So let's go through some of these things, which is great. Okay, what safety strategies would you take at your centre? Asthma management plans, yes. So we're talking about asthma action plans. So that identifies that the child does have asthma, which is really, really important. Some of the other things are so when we're talking about asthma management plan, it's really important that you're documenting, obviously not just on the asthma management plan, but on the relevant documentation of the service that the child has identified as asthma. And that is communicated to all staff. So really important.

- And also making sure that you have, that you've got an asthma policy.

- In place.

- Asthma management policy. That the parents have been given a copy of this policy, that the staff have access to the policy, that you've got a communication plan, and everything is communicated to the parents and the staff.

- I love this one here. We have purchased air purifiers in each classroom. That's fantastic. That's brilliant that you've actually done that. And it's interesting you read because it's important on purchasing the air purifiers that you work out the area within your room because they are based on square meter in terms of how many air purifiers you would need. Regular cleaning, which is great. So we are talking about damp dusting, which is really important. Staying indoors when air quality is low, I love that. So looking at the air quality app is really important. Regular dusting out of hours, yes, so that we're not actually putting all that particle matter in the old feather dusters we had, probably not a good idea.

- Risk minimisation forms. Fantastic, so important. So important to have, and then you can look at strategies, putting strategies into place to make sure these potential triggers are minimised.

- I like this here, reducing pillows and rugs. Have a chair for him or her to sit on, instead of the floor. That is perfect, because the dust mites live in all the carpets, which is brilliant. So you really can identify that. And also the toys, I notice someone cleaning the toys. We go to these, what do they call those fidgets now, the plastic soft things. I hate them as a parent. They're annoying as anything, but I think that there is actually a plus in that, because you can actually wash them.

- Not good for the environment, but good to wipe down.

- Exactly, and pillows and things like that are really important.

- Yes, making sure spacer medication that you have, and it's up to the parents obviously to provide you with that, make sure it's in date, and it has Tommy's name and address on it, that's fantastic.

- And ensure family are provided with an asthma management plan. I think I've been reading this side here, and communication plan, discuss minimising, spread of hand washing, periodically steam, cleaning of mats. Wow guys, this is really impressive. Can I just say you're really up to date with everything.

- One other thing, which I'm sure has been written, but I haven't seen as I'm skimming through, is just to make sure everyone has received their asthma management training. And as you know, it's a requirement, needs to be done at least every three years, and you need at least one staff member on duty at all times, to have had their asthma management training.

- And just to reinforce today, today is not an asthma management ACECQA approved course. We are just giving you the information, and giving you some tips and handy things. And we can talk about training towards the end, but addressing triggers is brilliant, and making sure the parents supply everything. So I think you've really covered it all, in terms of that. So supervision, yes wow, you've done excellent.

- Yes.

- Wow.

- Tommy is in good hands.

- He's in very good hands.

- Okay, fantastic, I think we can probably-

- Go to the next slide, but I love it. I'd love a copy of all those comments, because they're really great and they show us that you really are thinking about it. Okay, so yes.

- Next slide, thank you. So obviously you most certainly covered off everything. But the main safety strategies I guess, would be making sure the medical condition is clearly documented in his file. Making sure you've got an asthma policy and it's current, and that it's been shared with the parents, having a think about who's in charge of updating these medical policies too, making sure they are reviewed regularly, making sure you have Tommy's individual asthma action plan, that it's visible, available to all staff and that all staff actually understand it and are able to follow it. Some of them can be a little bit confusing or complicated. Making sure you've done a risk minimisation plan, and have a communication plan that the parents are aware of. Making sure everyone's had their asthma training, and that you have a puffer and reliever for Tommy.

- When Roxy mentioned on here, it says individual asthma action plans. And in the previous Menti, you were saying asthma management plan, just remember that those two are used interchangeably. So don't get confused. They are the same thing. Asthma management plan and asthma action plan are the same.

- Okay, next slide please. Okay, so be prepared and aware, and preparation is the key to prevention. So just talking a little bit more on the documents or strategies you would need for a newly enrolled asthmatic. So firstly, your individual asthma action plan or your management plan, obviously developed by a GP or a medical practitioner, or a nurse practitioner, whether it be after a presentation to hospital, or through management with their GP. Obviously, it's their parents responsibility to provide you with this. And I know they can sometimes be a little bit difficult, but it's also their responsibility to keep it updated. So annual, at the least an annual update, of their asthma action plan, or if details change at all. Making sure that staff understand it and are able to initiate asthma first aid and follow their individual asthma action plan. Making sure it's displayed obviously in a prominent location. Now there are different versions out there. The colour coded one, oh yes, the colour coded one is the one that we give our patients after they've been admitted to hospital.

- There are other versions.

- But, there are other versions. And I'll just go to the next slide, because I wanted to have a chat to you about this version, which is an action plan by asthma flare-up. And Melinda do you-

- Yes, so this was launched in 2017 by the health minister, and basically was one of our biggest bugbears with the education sector. They said, oh my God, Melinda, the amount of plans that we get that we don't understand and that staff are required to follow, it's ridiculous. Like what does as needed mean? All these plans were coming through saying as needed. And we had GPs just completely confused. And when you look at when the child's actually, present within your service, you're not needing to know about preventer medications. You really just need to know about what to do in an asthma emergency. You also need to identify are those children, do they have anaphylaxis? And we thought, gee, anaphylaxis have done it really well. They've got this one page document that's displayed easily, that everyone can recognise. So this is why we came up with this form. And this is a form that we'd really encourage you to use. And there's a link to it down here. And certainly Kate and the team can share that link with you at the end of the workshop, but it's clear. It's got a child's photo here, the child's name, date of birth. The child has confirmed food allergy, insect, or medication allergies. And if you get a tick here, then that indicates that you need to know, has the child got an ASCIA action plan? And if they do, then you would refer to the ASCIA action plan. Also some children who might need reliever medication prior to exercise, do need to know that as a staff, that's really important, to be aware of that for excursions and when you're doing any activities. And Kate's kindly shared that in the chat, which is fantastic. And the most important thing is, that it's got signed by the parent and carer here. So the parent and carer knows that you are following the four step asthma first aid plan, because that's what your staff are trained in. That's a ACECQA requirement is asthma first aid. And obviously if there's anything different, if you've got a child with severe complex asthma, myself or someone at Westmead, or one of the other hospitals would be calling you saying, "Hey, this child is a little bit unique. "We want you to call an ambulance. "They've got a P1 plan. "We want you to initiate treatment straight away, "and call an ambulance." But that's only a very small minority of people, very, very small. So we'd really encourage you guys to make sure you've got accurate documentation, that is up to date. I'm just going to quickly read some of these Kate, if you don't mind. Is that sufficient to do a course in first aid in the asthma education care every three years, or do educators have to do a specific separate asthma course every three years? Okay, so the first aid course that you see on the ACECQA website, you actually can scroll down. And there's one I think called HLTP, and it covers first aid anaphylaxis and asthma, that covers asthma in there, and that covers anaphylaxis in there. However, there are separate courses for anaphylaxis and asthma. And I'm not going to say that I don't, I'll say it today, but we really advocate for you to do a separate asthma thing. It is not, you don't have to do it. It is covered in the first aid course, but we believe that you really need intensive education on asthma and anaphylaxis. And we feel that once you've been to a course, specific on asthma and anaphylaxis, you notice that there's so much to cover in the course content of an asthma of a first aid course, so it can get quite confusing. So we would recommend that.

- This is a good question.

- Can we display this format instead of other asthma action plans? Yes, you can display this plan in lieu of the asthma action plans. Whatever suits your facility, and so that staff are familiar with it. And as long as staff understand it, that's the most important thing. If the parents do not provide an asthma plan as the doctor has said, it's seasonal, not all the time, what can we do? Okay, so that's a really tricky one. And I think it's important to actually say, "Look, if the child has an asthma plan, they have asthma. "Therefore you need a plan." And even if it is only seasonal that they're only getting it, a flare-up can occur at any time without warning. And I think you need to communicate that to the parents. We have a email address at the end. If you have issues that you want to email us about regarding this, and there's a bit of conflict, we're happy to be the person that has a chat in between. Do asthma action plans need to be renewed every year? Yes, we would recommend. Or if the child's treatment changes at any point in time. So really important. Our policy states that asthma and anaphylaxis are renewed annually. That is brilliant. Can I just tell you that is the gold standard, and that is what we would encourage, but it's not mandatory from ACECQA, but we would say that those services that do it annually, they are in our gold star books. Can I tell you? It's a little bit like CPR, you need training it every day because you need to know exactly what to do. But again, ACECQA recommend only every three years. Just what is the difference between a preschool wheeze action plan and an asthma action plan? They're pretty much the same thing. So in children under two years of age, you can get a wheeze asthma action plan because they're known as what's called as viral induced wheeze. So it's a virus that's causing the wheeze. And often it's the same, it's treated with Ventolin. So we would treat it exactly the same as we would treat asthma, if they do have wheeze.

- It's very difficult to diagnose with asthma under the age of five, really, because the airways are changing, they're maturing. Viral induced wheeze in your young ones is very common and most, a lot of kids, or the majority of kids will grow out of it. And it's hard to diagnose asthma until about the age of five, just purely for that reason. The airways are maturing and developing.

- Yes. And someone just, Chris asked about the asthma, I think you're talking about the course of asthma first aid plan and training and what are the requirements of services. Yes, it is legislated under safe work, New South Wales. And we were actually involved in the consultation of that to ensure that you could have asthma first aid kits, and that you follow the asthma first aid plan, and that you are trained in it. Should we keep an extra Ventolin other than the prescribed one? Yes, you would, because you may get that first child that has their first episode at the education care sector and they may not be diagnosed with asthma. And we will talk about that later, but it's important to have a spare one. I have a parent who does not understand her child's asthma action plan using the preventer reliever. This is so common. Not using the preventer daily as it states in the plan. So if the child is not coughing, it's not given, but then flares up a lot. Do you know what? That makes me so sad to think that that actually happens, because the preventer is what reduces a likelihood of them coming to emergency. They don't understand that when you are well, you must take a preventer every day. So that needs education. And I would say at the end of the session today, log on to our website, www.asthmainchildren.org.au. We have live webinars once a month and we are happy for you to share that link to parents, and it doesn't cost. Refer them in, if you've got parents that are having issues understanding asthma, have got poor follow up, and I've seen a few questions here, put them through to our webinars and we'll actually get them on the track in terms of who they need to speak to in their area.

- Yes, and then we can support them in the community too, and make sure they've got a GP that's supportive and also understands.

- Yes. And the other thing is that someone asked about air quality, and I'm just going back a little bit here in terms of the air quality. The air quality rater app is what we recommend. Someone had asked that question previously. And in terms of air purifiers, there's no one that we would recommend. We would recommend one with a HEPA filter, H-E-P-A. We know that Dyson have got them, but they're very expensive. I did actually see, and I think it's Aldi, might have them this weekend or coming up, 'cause I did see them in the brochures. So just a heads up there. You might wanna head out to Aldi. And I looked at them, they look quite suitable. Okay, move to the next slide, move to the next slide. We could talk all day.

- Anything that we-

- Missed today in in the comments, we'll come back, and we'll liaise with Kate, and we'll answer all the questions individually, so that no one feels that they've been left out, okay? Just so that we don't slow down the presentation, because we do talk a lot.

- So another document, important document, when it comes to a newly enrolled asthmatic patient, is individual risk minimisation plan. This is the responsibility for and the development by the childcare service, in consultation with the parents. So it needs to be done. It's a collaborative effort and it's basically identifying the triggers and looking at strategies to minimise children's exposure to these. And you did a great job previously in mentioning, giving a lot of examples for this. These should be updated annually as well, along with the asthma action plan by yourself and the parent, or if any details of the child's asthma change. And not just looking at on onsite environments, but any potential offsite environments. So excursions, yes.

- Yes, it's any of those kind of events, you can actually log onto the Asthma Australia website, and actually download that and use it as a template. Please feel free to use that. It's really well done. But it's thinking about, are you going bush walking for the day? What are the plants that are out there? Is it a high pollen count day? Is it, is there lots of pollution in the air? Things such as that. Just really need to think about these things, you know. Is it a cold day? Should they, do they have a cough and cold that day? Do you have things like the asthma first aid kit? Do you have those children that are identified that have asthma within your service? So it's really about thinking about that individual child, and going through that. And we are happy to email us if you're concerned about something that you're not quite sure, about risk minimisation, we're happy to kind of talk to you about it.

- Yes, and making sure all the staff have this, it's easily accessible to everyone and somewhere kind of, wherever you keep your asthma action plans as well, just making sure you're highlighting those major triggers to each of your patients with asthma. Because like I said, everyone's triggers are different and they'll vary greatly. So, that's-

- Yes, sorry, and just minimisation plans are available on the asthma.org website

- Asthma Australia.

- And so you can download those. The air purifier are selling in Aldi. I'm just quickly going back to these questions. Would you be covered legally if you provide a medication to a child that's not prescribed with asthma? Yes you are, and Roxy is going to talk about that later, okay? Do you need to update the plan every 12 months, yes. I've had issues with obtaining asthma action plans that have GP or doctors sign off. They seem to be a gray area. Our asthma action plans require to have a doctor sign off. They are meant to, because it's an opportunity for the doctor to review them at that time, and actually see what's happening with the overall asthma management. We have a doctor refusing to do a plan for our parents. Is there anything we can do, so the plan is able to be provided?

- Maybe I they should get another doctor.

- And I think you should email us and we'll email that GP. And perhaps they just don't know that a document like this exists and they often think that an asthma action plan's not relevant for educational sector and some of these GPS, it's just a form of education to say, "Hey, there's this document that exists." So we're happy to share that with them. Okay, so let's go to the next slide.

- Yes, so then documents, which I'm sure you all have asthma management policies and communication plans. So asthma management policy will detail the responsibilities and the communication plan, detail the responsibilities of our staff, parents, provide guidelines on the management of asthma within that childcare service. So looking at procedures for prevention, and management of asthma, again like risk minimisation, your asthma first aid, it covers staff training requirements. And again, your risk minimisation plans and your individual asthma action plans, and management plans, all responsibilities of the parents and the staff. Equipment required, so things like your asthma first aid kits, asthma first aid posters. How many kits do you need, whose responsibility is to be checking the asthma kits, making sure the medications aren't expired, that kind of thing. So the communication plan obviously is like a direct line of contact, I guess, between the parent, carers and staff, making sure they're aware of all your policies and procedures and that you are managing the asthma according to the requirements, yes.

- Yes, and just-

- Sorry, sorry, and the link down below is again, a link for a template. So Asthma Australia has some great templates on there for any documents that you want to have a look at, you think might need updating or just to check, and make sure you're on the right track, which I'm sure you are. But there's great templates there, if you want to have a look.

- And I mean, it's just really important to let the parents know, they want to know what's going on. And there are many policies that you can correct, basically just drop your name into those templates. And we should put one about, we should put an example actually up on our website at one. I think that might really help you guys out. So we'll look at doing that, putting a policy up there of a mock so that you can kind of just reword it and things. It's pretty easy and straightforward. It should be just a one-page document.

- Yes, next slide please. Okay, so we have a question.

- A Menti.

- A Menti, if you guys could scan that. So what medication should be in your first aid asthma kit?

- And this is really interesting thinking about this answer, because I've just had a question here saying we have a doctor prescribing Flixotide as a reliever. And thankfully, a person in the chat has said our training assisted us with knowing otherwise. I'm really worried that that doctor has put Flixotide in the reliever section because Flixotide is a preventer. So wow, that's a bit of a worry.

- Wow, and interesting responses. Okay, I think we're done.

- Okay so, when you look at that Ventolin and reliever medications, those people are correct, okay? All of the above is probably not correct. Because we don't use preventers in an asthma first aid situation. Relievers are the blue and cooling colouring, one of the brand names is Ventolin, that's why Ventolin is also applicable, okay? Preventers, autumn in colouring. No, we do not do preventers.

- And yes, if we click along. So I guess this is a good example of the fact that there are other, oh sorry, we've passed it on. It's not just Ventolin, so there are other trade names. There's other devices. So we have our, the Ventolin is certainly in the most common aerosolised reliever medication, but we also have Asmol, Zempreon is another trade name, which is a new one. Airomir, so our auto inhalers, you may see. Some kids might come in with those, when the dose is delivered automatically, and they don't need to, if they're lacking the coordination to kind of breathe in and press at the same time. And Bricanyl, so Bricanyl is also a reliever, but it's a dry powder. So just to be aware, there are other relievers out there, not just Ventolin.

- And the Bricanyl, just to say to you, that it's really recommended for children seven years and above. And the reason for that, it takes a great deal of inspiratory airflow. When I say that, I mean an ability to suck in, and that can be really difficult if you are experiencing an asthma attack. But if you were in an asthma first aid situation, and you had to use it, you could use Bricanyl. But just to say that, usually you'd be using Ventolin and these ones here.

- Yes, so aerosolised medication.

- We'll go to the next slide.

- So what is in your service's asthma first aid kit? Obviously, your a reliever, your Ventolin, your Asmol, your Zempreon. What else, yes, so excellent, a spacer. And what else do we have, a mask. Anything else, yes, asthma first aid poster or instructions, or asthma action plan, and that's it. So a little bomb bag of all the essentials there. And making sure, yes, making sure that you have more than one of these. You've got them to take on your excursions. You've got spares and someone is checking these regularly, just to check the medication is within date, that the spaces are clean and yes, so.

- So that should be stored within a suitable location within your service. I've had a couple of services who've accidentally locked them away, because they're medication. Please do not lock them away. Ventolin or a blue reliever is a life-saving medication. If someone was to use a blue reliever who wasn't diagnosed with asthma, it's okay alright? The important thing is that you've got really quick access to it in the event that you need it. As we talked about how many minutes can you not have your airway for? So when you talk about EpiPens and we talk about relievers, they need to be in an easily accessible location, that's not locked away.

- Okay, next slide please. Okay, when would you use a puffer and spacer with a mask in asthma first aid? So when are you going to use the mask in your asthma first aid?

- What ages, this is a really interesting question. Okay, let's see what everyone is saying. Wow, this is interesting, okay. Always, Okay. Okay, evening up. Okay, alright. So interestingly enough, just to let you know, that you only need a mask for children under four years of age, okay? Once they can put their mouth on the end of the mouthpiece, like this, they're actually going to get more medication into their airways, okay? Because when you actually attach a mask to it, a lot of it will sit on the mouth and the face, okay? And the reason why we've got masks is because children can't adequately put their mouth on the end of the mouthpiece, okay? So what we would recommend is zero to four years, a mask, and then four years and above, without a mask. Obviously, if you have a child that is developmentally delayed or you have oral aversion or something, you could actually use a mask, and that is indicated for that. So less than four years with a mask attached to the spacer.

- We have couple questions here. So with the spacer in the first aid kit should it be replaced after it's been used for one child, yes.

- It does need to be replaced. And spacer should not be shared. And you need like many other, you need a few different spacers that can be replaced. Obviously, environmentally, you want to kind of give it to the parent. There are actually cardboard ones now, that you can actually get that are single patient use. But again, you've got to be able to basically put your mouth on the end of the mouthpiece here, which is sometimes not often an option for your little children under four years of age, like so. So there are flat ones that can be used. Can I just say to you though, in a situation where you have multiple children having asthma episodes and you have one spacer available, it's really important you get that medication into the child. Okay, please, infection control shouldn't be an issue in this point in time. The most important thing is getting that medication into the child. So you may, on the off chance have to use, it's no different to sharing a cup of water. If someone really, really needed a cup of water and had to share a cup of water. It's not ideal, okay? But it's better than not having the asthma medication at all. Just reading all these questions, if the individual asthma action plan states Ventolin can we give a generic reliever if the parents supply this? Yes, because Ventolin is the brand name. Asmol and Zempreon are the cheaper versions of it basically. So yes you can. It contains the active ingredient salbutamol.

- Should you wash your child's child individual spacer after use or can you do it weekly? You can actually do it weekly or fortnightly. Oh if they have a virus or recover a cold, obviously do it more regularly. Just purely infection control. But fortnightly cleaning up the spacers is what is recommended.

- And really, it should be the parent that's doing this and also spacers from the asthma first aid kit don't need to be washed, okay, because they're being used or one off, okay. But the first time you ever use a spacer, it's really important that you prime it the first time and how we prime that is we wash it in warm, soapy water, like your Fairy liquid or your Morning Fresh and you pop it out and you air dry it. You don't rinse off the soap, okay. Because the soap prevents the electrostatic charge from clinging. And what that does is it prevents the medication from cleaning to the inside of the chamber. Okay, so we need to prime it the first time Say you had to use it and you didn't have time to actually pop it in the warm, soapy water and air dry prior to use, you could put up to 10 puffs of the Ventolin inside the chamber to coat the inside of it. Sorry that I'm putting it in ear. Okay, to coat the inside of it, like so. Okay, so you could actually do it. In terms of a nebulizer, still okay to use, I know some families are using these at home because they feel like their child isn't sucking the Ventolin properly. Spacers have been found to be as equally as effective as nebulizers in the treatment and management of asthma. You will actually get more medication and there's greater lung deposition if you use a spacer. When you use a nebulizer, what happens is you've got large particle sizes that sit in the mouth and they also are being lost to the environment. Okay, so no, spacers really it should be, nebulizers should really not be as common as we see. It should be spacers first line. If a child comes into emergency, they're treated with a spacer and puff if they're having a mild or moderate attack. If they're having a severe or life threatening, we may put a nebulizer on them because they can't put their mouth on the mouthpiece. But really it is about education. And we really work, we've got some great videos on our website for that. Someone said, I couldn't source the cardboard spacer from Chemist. They said they're just used in hospitals. That's not correct. The LiteAire spacers are available. The brand is LiteAire. And also Bird Healthcare have bought out new spacers. I don't promote them, but I'm just saying email us. If you've got any questions about where to get them. And they can also be purchased from Asthma Australia.

- Is it compulsory to use a face mask and spacer? A face mask for under four? It's not compulsory, but it is best practice. I think if you don't use a spacer, you get about 15% of the medication into the lungs and the rest just gets stuck in the mouth, in the oral cavity. So it is really, really important to use a spacer.

- Someone said, could you restate the comment about spacer in the first aid kit, only one use. So spacers is infection control guidelines brought out by the NHMRC that spacers are not to be shared. Okay, so spacers are single patient use only so that you need obviously more spacers than one spacer. So this is what the spacers shouldn't be shared.

- Yes, obviously you can reuse it if it's the child's own spacer, just clean it every two weeks. But the one in the first aid kit, get rid of it and get a fresh one.

- And parents should be supplying their own. I think we'll go to the next slide, because I'm looking at time. I could keep talking, I love all these questions. I get excited when I see these questions. I can't, but I don't want to present. I want to answer the questions. Okay, let's go.

- Okay, next question. Would you administer Ventolin to a child not documented to have asthma on enrolment. Let's go. Excellent, good to know.

- Well, fantastic, okay. Most important thing is you've got to get that medication into the airway, and that you are covered legally in the ACECQA regulations in patient care.

- Yes, can we go to the next slide? If we go to the next slide, please. Yes, so regulation 94 states that you are able to administer medication without authority in an asthma emergency. Obviously, obviously so you don't need parental permission. Obviously document and inform the parents as soon as possible afterwards, but you are exempt from regulation 93, which states that you need verbal consent. So if it's an asthma emergency, you are able to administer Ventolin. It's a very safe drug.

- Yes, and the thing is, if any child has difficulty breathing, you still can use it. But we're not asking you to be doctors and nurses. That's why we're saying, give it but call emergency services because you don't know why they could be having difficulty breathing. It could be something else. It could be a foreign body. It could be anything. And also see how it's got notification to emergency services and parent, I don't want you calling the parent first and then emergency services, the other way around, okay? The reason why that is, I've worked on a few coronial inquests where the parents said, don't give the medication until I get there. So please call emergency services first, then the parent that you're administering as the first aid, 'because you're legally covered to do that.

- How many first aid kits with you suggest at a centre?

- Oh, okay.

- How big is your centre?

- So minimum two, I would say, one to be at the centre that's to be used onsite, to stay there, and one to be used for offsite excursions. So you can imagine this is a huge issue for high schools because they've got multiple groups going off at one time, hopefully in the educational sector, you are not all going off at different times, but I know OSH services, for example, they go off and do excursions and things and some services keep their kids at the centre. So really you need to cover both bases.

- And it's really great to have these paper spacers because it's kind of important to have at least once, you know, have a spacer for each asthmatic patient that you have. So you're not having to share spacers. Repeat how to prime.

- Prime, so warm, soapy water and air dried. And what we'll do is a lot of these questions that are coming through, we've got a handout that I'll forward to Kate. It's on our website, but it is relevant for the educational care sector childcare staff. And a lot of these questions are answered here in that. So I'll get that emailed through at the end, and Kate can facilitate sending that throughout.

- We might keep going.

- So next slide.

- Yes, okay, so we're back to Tommy Sniff. So he is not having a great month, and his mum's informed you that he's been diagnosed with a peanut allergy after a vomiting episode at home. So he now has an EpiPen and he's allergic, or his triggers are peanuts and possibly tree nuts. What additional safety strategies would your centre need to consider or implement in this situation? So if you could just.

- Use your little Menti QR code.

- Any strategies that you'd put into place, that would be fantastic. So if we... Yes, no peanuts, yes.

- Remember you are a peanut-free zone, not a nut-free zone because you can never guarantee that you're not going to be nut free.

- Yes, an allergy anaphylaxis action plan, fantastic. Another look at your risk minimisation plan again. Nut free, be aware, yes. No nuts action plan, yes.

- Peanut free, yes peanut free.

- And anaphylaxis action plan So you ASCIA action plan. Again, look at your risk minimisation plan and communication plan.

- Allergy card, yes.

- Yes, make sure you have an EpiPen. Make sure the parents are providing you with the medication again, clearly labelled with the date of birth, expiry date. That's fantastic. Yes, and look at your risk minimisation in regards to peanuts. Yes, fantastic.

- I think you've got it all. What we might do, Kate, is go to the next slide. If you don't mind, and then we can just address those. Because I think many of you have addressed it.

- Okay, so the next slide please.

- So, I think you covered all this. You confirm the medication, condition, documentation, communicate to staff. Ensure you've got an allergy and anaphylaxis policy. You've got an individual ASCIA plan. You've updated your risk minimisation communication plan. And you're ensuring staff have received anaphylaxis training. You've got easy access to Tommy's EpiPen and Anapen.

- Okay, so next slide please. After lunch, you notice that Tommy is sitting alone next to the sand pit. He has a dry cough and you can hear a slight wheeze. When you ask him how he feels, he complains of a sore chest. You're the only caregiver in view at the time. What steps would you take if any?

- Scan that code and then jump that up. What steps would you take, if any? Okay, it'd be interesting to see what everyone says here. Follow action plan. Is that the ASCIA one or is that the anaphylaxis one? What do you reckon?

- Yes, so what happening here?

- Give him his antihistamine if he has any. Remove the trigger, call out for assistance.

- Call out for assistance, fantastic, sit him up.

- Give asthma reliever. Would you give the asthma reliever? I don't is it anaphylaxis for asthma? What do you do? I don't know.

- It's a bit of a trick now. Now we we've got two things to think about, don't we? We've got asthma and we've got anaphylaxis. And the reason we gave you this trick scenario.

- Because it did actually happen, okay?

- Yes, and we want you to think about call triple zero, yes, certainly. Monitor him.

- Stay with him.

- Treat, ah here we go, treat as anaphylactic first, as per action plan. Then follow up with asthma reliever. Here is the answer.

- This person gets the gold star today. Kate, can you work out who that person is? Because that one in the centre has got it in one, okay? Anaphylaxis is really hard to spell, I do it admit that.

- Okay, can we go, fantastic. Can we go to the next slide please?

- So that's the most important thing you do, if you are in doubt. If you've got a child that has asthma and anaphylaxis, if you are in doubt, the first thing you do is always treat the anaphylaxis, because it has adrenaline in it and it will actually work and help with the anaphylaxis and the asthma at the same time.

- We've lost our slides. We'll just wait guys, very good responses.

- Josiah, are you still there?

- That's okay, we can keep going, 'because we could talk till the cows come home.

- Yes so, and the reason we put this, well, do you want to give them, tell them about the...

- So there was one case that I was involved with, and unfortunately it didn't end up in a great end result but and it's fair enough, it is so confusing understanding whether it was asthma or anaphylaxis. And so the staff were continually giving the Ventolin and the child was really irritable. It was after lunch, they'd eaten something. They were really angry. They weren't taking the Ventolin. They were ringing the parents saying the child's really behaviorally is just changed, and the child started vomiting, but they kept on giving the reliever. And it wasn't until the ambulance said, we think it's anaphylaxis, give the EpiPen. Yes, the child, they gave the EpiPen and within minutes the child reverted to being completely well again.

- So just, I know you have anaphylaxis training and you're having a presentation on anaphylaxis as well, but we just wanted to highlight the fact that asthma and anaphylaxis do share some symptoms confusingly. So that tightness in the chest, the wheeze, the shortness of breath, and the cough can be anaphylaxis, can be asthma. So what we always say is, if we can go to the next slide, please.

- Acute, it's always the acute, okay? Allergic action will always come on acutely.

- So always, if you are unsure, always treat anaphylaxis first, and use your Anapen or your EpiPen, and then treat the asthma. An EpiPen or adrenaline will work a little for asthma. It'll improve the symptoms of asthma, but Ventolin will not help in anaphylaxis. And it's a medical emergency, as you know, it can progress incredibly quickly. So always if there's any doubt, treat the anaphylaxis first.

- Go to the next slide.

- Okay, oh so we've been through this.

- We've covered this, we've covered what you do.

- So is it asthma or anaphylaxis? Obviously don't leave Tommy alone. If in doubt, treat the anaphylaxis first, follow the ASCIA plan, give the EpiPen, call an ambulance, and then treat the asthma. So follow your four step asthma first aid, notify the parents and document.

- And let the relevant authorities know.

- Yes, so our next slide, please. I think we're getting a bit.

- Yes so we're going to have to go through this really quickly 'because we're looking at time and we know that time is pressed and there's a few things we that want to go on with, but we're just going to quickly go through the four step asthma first aid plan with you. Today, you're not being trained in asthma first aid. We just want to show you what it is. We know that you do have to have separate accredited training where you get a certificate, but there's been a slight, not a slight change. The four step for asthma first aid plan is available from Asthma Australia, National Asthma Council, St. John's Ambulance. It's based on all the number four, okay. If you don't forget the number four, you'll never forget it. So really, really simple, so we're going to go through it.

- We're going to flick along a few slides. We might need to skip a few.

- We'll skip this one. Yes, just cause I'm looking at the time, yes. So implementing asthma first aid is really important, that you know what you are looking for, and you can see that the differences, and here's an example of someone who's having a severe asthma attack.

- Yes so there's mild, moderate, severe symptoms of asthma and they're treated differently. So if you're seeing mild to moderate symptoms, obviously you're implementing your asthma first stage.

- And not all symptoms need to be present, as a slide says down here. And like I talked, a wheeze may not be present.

- So you might, so the kids might be experiencing minor difficulty breathing. They might have a tight or a sore chest, say it's harder to breathe. They might be breathing with their tummy. They might be breathing a little bit faster. They can still sometimes talk in a full sentence if it's just a mild flare up or they might be just kind of minimising their words, kind of, if it's more moderate. They might still be looking alert, able to walk around and playing and still moving around, have normal skin colour. And they may have a cough, which is usually a dry kind of irritable cough, especially if they're doing things, they're exercising, and they may or may not have a wheeze. Sorry, next slide.

- So this is an example of a severe asthma episode. It's great difficulty breathing. It's sucking in at the throat here, okay? Here and sucking in of the rib cages. So you're seeing that intercostal retraction. They're not speaking, they're only speaking in like one letter or a syllable, if that, but they're pale and sweaty, they're losing oxygen. So you might get the blue around the lips. And as I said, there's often no wheeze heard at all, and it's often a silent chest.

- Yes, so obviously if you're seeing any of these symptoms, call an ambulance immediately and then implement asthma first aid. So we'll go to the next slide. This is the new asthma first aid.

- Asthma first aid plan.

- Poster, available on National Asthma Council. And we believe it's, the steps are still the same, but there is a little more option in the in the fourth step, isn't there? So, here we go.

- Yes, so there's four steps.

- So the first few steps are still the same. So make sure your child's sitting up comfortably, upright, so their airway's as open as possible, and keeping them calm and reassuring them. Obviously, if you are panicking, they're going to panic also. So we have our puffer and a spacer. If they have their own puffer in their pocket, if they're older, that's fantastic. Otherwise, call out for someone to go and get the asthma first aid kit. Don't leave them alone. So you need to, because this medication is aerosolised, you need to give it a good shake. Remember, and that's to mix the medication, to make sure you're getting the right dose. Remember to take the cap off, which can be forgotten in an emergency sometimes. Give it a shake, pop it on the end of your spacer. Now pop it in in the mouth and make sure there's a nice seal there. And then you're giving one puff, four breaths, and just normal breaths. They don't need to be doing huge deep breaths. So one puff, four breaths. And we'll repeat that four times. And four, one, two, three, four. Now we're waiting four minutes. Stay with the child obviously. Make sure they're comfortable and reassess, continually reassessing their symptoms. So for step four, after the four minutes, there's a few options here. So if we, next slide, oh hang on, sorry.

- Next slide, that's right, yes.

- So you go back, so if their breathing is normal, and it's completely improved, then no need to give any more, no need to give any more Ventolin. Obviously inform the doctors, suggest that they get a check-up. If they've had symptoms in your centre. The next option, or another option is if they're worse or they're not any better, then call them an ambulance immediately and keep giving the four puffs of the blue grey reliever, every four minutes until the ambulance arrives. There's one more option, which gives you a little bit more leeway on whether or not you need to immediately call an ambulance. And that's, if they're still kind of not quite breathing normally, they're still a little bit harder to breathe, you can give four more puffs of the blue grey reliever, and then reassess them after a couple of minutes. If they haven't improved call an ambulance. So basically, the new first aid poster gives you a little bit more, it gives you another option to give another four puffs before you call an ambulance, basically. Does that make sense?

- And look, the thing is, is that most kids pick up after the first four puffs, I will say that. But it's okay to keep giving it if you still need it. You might just get those side effects, which is hyperactive. They might get a bit shaky. These side effects do subside, okay? So don't be scared by the side effects.

- Yes, if we can go to the next slide, please.

- So I've just got these last two slides, and I know that we're four minutes over, but just bear with me, this is a map.

- Do you need to shake the Ventolin in between each puff? Sorry, this comes up a little bit. It is best practice to shake in between each puff, but in an emergency, no you don't need to. Just shake it in the start.

- Because you're not going to have time, but it can affect the amount of medications delivered. The most important thing is, is that you shake it and then you quickly put it in the end and start giving the medication.

- If it wasn't an emergency, then shaking it in between each puff is best practice, but in an emergency it's not necessary as long as you're just doing it at the start doing it well at start, sorry.

- So is your service asthma aware and prepared? And this is where I really want you to think about today some of the key messages in these last two slides. So staff training, complete a ACECQA training every minimum of three years. And you'll notice here that you can actually search through the national quality framework for our course, if you want to go, but you can actually do the other HLTP or asthma and anaphylaxis. We advocate separate courses, but it's not mandatory. Encourage all staff to attend. We have a provider of one big organisation across Australia and they make sure that all their staff attend, because you can't always guarantee that that one person that's received the training may not be there that day. So one person needs to be on duty at all time. Maintain individual training status so that you, that the director is aware of who actually needs training. And as I said, some people would want to do it annually, which is brilliant. The next one is access to asthma first aid equipment and child's own medication delivery device. I think we've covered this. Parents need to be encouraging, to provide their child's spacer, their Ventolin or their Asmol, clearly labelled, the child's name, date of birth. Make sure that asthma first aid kits are easily accessible and that they are reviewed. Ventolin, for example, and all the medication comes, goes out of date. If you do get one that's out of date, make sure it's replaced, but if you've got nothing else, you can still use it, but make sure it's replaced. Ensure you've got it for excursions and also display the national asthma first aid poster. This poster you can actually ring up and order them for free, and they'll send them out to you. The National Asthma Council will send them to you. So go to the next slide, please. Okay, accurate documentation, really important that you keep individual medical management plans for known asthmatics. And we've actually got a copy of the asthma flare up document we talked about, and Kate's actually put it in the chat. Also ensure information's updated annually, record all flare ups and treatment. If you go on our website, we've actually got a flare up, I'm sorry, a treatment record card where you can actually identify how often kids are kind of coming to get the medication. And the most important thing is, is that you must document any critical incidents by the NQIS website. So that basically, if a child has a severe asthma episode or you call emergency services, or there was a fatality or anything, you must log it on that website, and they will contact you. The next one is develop an asthma policy in accordance with the education care regulation of 2011, and communicate this to staff and parents. Nominate staff for maintaining asthma first aid and look at risk minimisation or potential strategies. And the next slide, okay. So the key message is that asthma is a serious life threatening condition, and we recommend all children's services need to know how to initiate asthma first aid. It's not just the director's responsibility. It's everyone's responsibility. Ensure that parents and carers know what's going on with their child's asthma, that it's been communicated to all, including casual staff. Think about risk identification and minimisation strategies. And they're the key to really preventing management of asthma flareups. And for parents, it's about getting the child to take their preventer medication, which is if they are prescribed it. Ensure your service has appropriate asthma management procedures in place that meet the national quality framework. And out of today's session, it's been so quick and rushed that think about something that you'd like to improve or implement within your service, that you've got the information out of today's session. I know that there are so many questions coming through. Roxy and myself will make sure that we go through all those questions. Kate, we'll answer them, Kate, because I know we're over.

- Yes, sorry, I was going say just such a massive thank you to Roxanne and Melinda, and apologies for the couple of technical issues that we've had along the way. We will be providing a copy of all of the questions that have come through today to Roxanne and Melinda as well. And we'll be able to follow up on the ones that we haven't got to. So thank you very much to everyone for your time. It's a really important subject. And thank you again to Roxanne and Melinda for your fantastic presentation. I know I learned a lot, and I hope everyone else did as well.

- Thank you, sorry for the rush at the end.

- And the details, if you go to the next slide, we've actually got an email address here. And just to also let you know, we actually do run Eventbrite ACECQA approved training for education sectors that it's approved. So we are happy for you to join our sessions there on our Eventbrite website and you receive certificates if you attend. We are actually putting some more dates up. We keep them quite tiny, our groups. So we send out placebos and things like that, but we do have the Eventbrite. I know you can look at ACECQA website, but just to let you know that, if you want to go to training where it's providers who are familiar with educational sectors, where you're looking after children, then we'd recommend, and also anaphylaxis do the same thing, yes.

- Great, so those links have just been popped into the chat, the email address and the Eventbrite link. So encourage you to jump onto those.

- Thank you.

- Excellent, thank you so much.

- Thank you and good afternoon everyone, bye.

- Hi everyone, we'll just give it a couple of minutes there. Numbers are going up, so we'll just get started in a couple of minutes, to allow people to get into the session. Numbers are still going up. I'll just give it another 30 seconds or so and then we'll get started. Okay, hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for today's Start Strong roadshow session. Thank you so much for your flexibility as well with the change in time, as we've had to navigate the various protocols relating to the passing of Queen Elizabeth. My name is Joss, and I'm the Assistant Manager of Communications within Early Childhood Education. And before we get started, I'd actually like to introduce you to some preschoolers from Kooloora Preschool at Toukley Public School on Darkinjung Country, who will Acknowledge Country.

- We place our hands on the ground to acknowledge Aboriginal land. We place our hands in the sky, that covers Aboriginal land. We place our hands on our heart to care for Aboriginal land, we promise.

- I would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we all meet today. For me, I have the privilege of living and working on Worimi Country and acknowledge that you are all joining us today from the various Aboriginal lands across New South Wales. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past, present, and to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who are our Elders of the future. I would also like to extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the session today. So I have some housekeeping for today's session. You'll find that your microphone, video, and chat functions are disabled, but the Q and A function is available. So we'll answer as many questions as we can throughout the webinar. So please post in Q and A. So you have the up-vote function as well. So if there is anything in particular that you would like answered, make sure you use that function. And we'll have some time at the end for Q and A. We'll also be using Menti during the session, so you can use your phone or another web browser. So have that ready, we have one in just a moment, so be ready for that one. The session is going to be recorded and we'll share it through our comms channels with you shortly, and also closed captioning will be enabled throughout this session. I'm going to throw to Joe Parsons, who is the Director of Early Childhood Outcomes Commissioned Programs. But while he's getting sorted, let's kick off with a Menti, just to see who's joining us today. So if you jump on, either scan the code or go menti.com, and you'll see the code there. And we'd love to hear about who is in the room today.

- Thanks, Joss Whilst this is coming through, I might just introduce myself as well. So my name's Joe Parsons, I'm the Director of Early Childhood Outcomes Commissioning. So my area has I guess, broad responsibility for the redesign of the Start Strong program, and the delivery of the Start Strong program as well. I'd like to acknowledge before I begin, that I'm coming to you from Gadigal Country. I'd like to pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging, and extend my respects to any Aboriginal colleagues on the call. Some good mix of people from across the state. I can see Murwillumbah, Coffs Harbour, Bathurst, Castle Hill, Katoomba, so a good mix of kind of Greater Western Sydney regional areas as well. And those numbers continue to tick up, so I think we've got about 360 people on the call, so that's great. It seems like a good geographic mix. In terms of service type, we see it in action. It looks quite just under two thirds, 59% preschool, about a third, long day care, some mobile services in there, and a few family day care as well. That's good to know, in terms of the composition of attendees, and still moving around a little bit. It's about right. Okay, and we've asked you what your role is within the service that you work in. There are lots of Directors. Cool, okay, again, quite a good mix in terms of, in terms of roles here. So as you can see, lots of Directors, Managers, Nominated Supervisors, Teaching Directors and Coordinators. So this feels good. Good geographic mix, good mix of services, good mix of roles. We've got some Operations Managers in there as well, and Centre Directors. Cool, all right, so I think we might jump into it now. That's a really good place to start, Joss, 'cause it gives us a really good understanding of who's here with us today. So I've introduced myself already. You're also going to be hearing from some of my colleagues, Sonja Herrmann, Liam Crook, and Rebecca O'Reilly, who work on our preschool funding teams. So look, in terms of today, I'm mindful that there may be some people joining, that might be hearing this information for the first time, about the changes to the Start Strong program. Also aware that there are many of you in the sector very eager for information on the funding that will be available through the Start Strong program for 2023. I can assure you we are doing our best to get the guidelines finalized as quickly as possible whilst ensuring that we're incorporating feedback from the recent sector consultation process that we ran. So just a bit of context on the Start Strong program. So we are seeing Start Strong as the key mechanism through which the preschool reform agreement and the Affordable Preschool initiative will be delivered from 2023, to provide funding for the provision of preschool education in New South Wales. So many of you will be aware that the Affordable Preschool initiative was announced as part of the early years commitment in late June this year. Since then we've been moving really quickly to work through the details. As I mentioned, there was the sector consultation process in August. We wanted to make sure we got feedback from both community preschool representatives and long day care representatives, to help inform the redesign of the program. So big thanks to everyone that participated in that process. Your feedback was really invaluable, really important to the redesign of the program. I'd encourage all of you to review, have a read of the summary report that was emailed earlier today. The "What We Heard" report that summarizes key themes that came out of that consultation process. So it's really important that we get this, the settings right for the new program, to ensure we can deliver on our commitments, and also that those sector perspectives are helping inform that process. So we're in the final stages of getting the guidelines finished. We've got a commitment to get them released next month, so in October. In terms of your funding notification letters, they'll be sent to services before the end of term four this year. We're also making available implementation support, and that will be in place from late 2022, to help services with kind of business and operational decisions regarding the new funding arrangements. So a bit of context on the Preschool Reform Agreement. So New South Wales was the first state, the first signatory to that agreement back in December last year. The agreement focuses on children in the year before school and aims to support universal access to early childhood education regardless of the service setting. So the agreement is significant for New South Wales and the early childhood education sector. It provides four years of funding certainty, while supporting increased participation and quality. And in addition to this, as I mentioned earlier, starting also in January 2023, the New South Wales Government is making a landmark investment of 1.3 billion over the next four years, to provide fee relief for families with children in preschool. So, in the community preschool space, this initiative will replace the Start Strong Free Preschool program and continue to provide fee relief for children aged three to five years old in those settings, both community and mobile preschools. For children aged four to five in long day care services, the fee relief will be in addition to the Australian Government's Child Care Subsidy. So these reforms represent a significant investment, which enables a greater focus and opportunity to ensure the principles of the PRA and affordable preschool are embedded into the Start Strong program and help to drive those program objectives. So just a bit of information on those objectives. So we are really keen to use Start Strong as a vehicle to improve the affordability of early childhood education, to uplift quality, to drive improved outcomes for children, and incentivize increased enrolment and attendance in quality early childhood education programs in the year before school. Today, we'll be providing you with a little bit more detail about the coming changes to the program. As I mentioned, we are working as quickly as we can to get our guidelines finalized, so please bear with us. Bear in mind that the details we're passing on today are subject to our final internal approval processes, that we're working quickly to get those finalized. So a bit of information on the preschool, a bit more information on the Preschool Reform Agreement, as I mentioned, it provides significant investment into the sector. PRA reforms come into effect in early 2023. A strong focus on uplifting quality, driving improved outcomes for children, and supporting increased enrolment and attendance in quality early childhood education programs. The agreement will run till 2025, expected to support more than 300,000 children. So Rebecca, Sonja, and Liam are going to talk in a bit more detail now about the Preschool Reform Agreement, what it means for community, mobile, and long day care services. And today, they'll be talking about each reform, so both the PRA and the Affordable Preschool separately, as the funding streams have two distinct purposes. So I am now going to throw to Rebecca O'Reilly, who's our lead for the long day program.

- Thanks Joe. My name's Rebecca O'Reilly, and I am the manager of strategic projects. And my team has been working on the redesign of the Start Strong long day care program. I'm coming to you from Wangal Land, and I would like to pay my respects to Elders past, present, and of course any Aboriginal colleagues we have joining us today. Very little is proposed to change under the eligibility criteria for Start Strong long day care. We are looking at shifting some of our language to align with the requirements of the Preschool Reform Agreement. Currently, the program guidelines state that the preschool program must be developed by teachers holding an approved early childhood teaching qualification. From 2023, we are looking at increasing our emphasis on the program being delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher, yet still in accordance with the requirements under the National Quality Framework, using the early years learning framework. Eligible children are those who are at least four on or before the 1st of July in that preschool year. Funding will continue to be weighted and scaled for children enrolled above and below 600 hours, and loadings will be allocated to services with children who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and services located in areas of relative socioeconomic disadvantage. In the short term, we will continue to use enrolment data provided by the Commonwealth Government for our representative week in May 2022, to determine initial funding payments. The department will work with the Commonwealth, to get an early 2023 enrolment data set, to ensure we are able to make funding adjustments that align with 2023 enrolment numbers. Funding is proposed to be allocated quarterly, and we are considering switching to a calendar year funding cycle. The department understands the difficulties the sector is experiencing. Impacts from COVID and other workforce issues have placed great strain on many services. The redesign of the program and the increase in funding coming to the long day care sector through the Preschool Reform Agreement, it is nearly doubling. It provides an opportunity to allow more flexibility in how we guide services in using this funding. From 2023, we are looking at changing the spending rules. Services will continue to be able to use funding on functional and educational resources, but also potentially on their workforce. This greater flexibility of funding could enable employers to improve pay and conditions, to help attract and retain staff. In addition to other changes to the Start Strong program, you may have heard that there will be a trial for 3-year-olds in long day care. The New South Wales Government has committed over 64 million to support the participation of 3-year-olds in quality preschool programs in long day care services. The trial will begin in early 2023 and will run for two years. The trial is proposed to be universal. So this means that all services eligible to participate in Start Strong long day care in 2023 will be involved. Loadings will likely apply to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and also for children attending services considered to be in areas of relative disadvantage. To keep the trial consistent with broader spending rules... Pardon me, we're going to allow funding to be spent on things such as investing in service through staff development and training, to increase teacher and educator confidence in developing or delivering preschool programs to 3-year-olds or purchasing educational resources. Funding can also be spent on reaching out to your community, to offer and promote quality 3-year-old preschool programs and connecting with your community groups. And funding will also be used to reduce non-fee related barriers such as transport or understanding and accessing Commonwealth subsidies. All activities must be focused on 3-year-old preschool, and their distinct learning and development needs. And this will be the first time in New South Wales, that we will be providing funding to long day care for 3-year-olds in preschool programs. Services will be asked to take part in an evaluation of the trial, so that we can understand what services are investing the funding in, and what the outcomes are. We're aiming to release the trial guidelines in October as part of that broader Start Strong 2023 program information that will be coming your way. As part of the early years commitment, the New South Wales Government has committed to improving affordability of early childhood education for families with children in the year or two before school. In long day care, this commitment means, that families will receive up to $2,000 per child to support fee relief. The funding is not means tested and will have no impact on a family's childcare subsidy. The funding will be allocated to services, who will then pass that fee relief on as a reduction to a family's fees. To simplify the distribution of fee relief, we're proposing that services provide families with a flat rate, distributed across the number of weeks of service a service open each year. And any outstanding gap fees after the childcare subsidy and the fee relief payment have been applied, would be paid by the family. We've been getting many questions coming from the sector, asking if families can access fee relief from more than one service, as we understand that many children attend both long day care and community preschools. And we are developing a mechanism to address this, and we will provide more information about this and other program elements when the program guidelines are released in October. This slide provides an illustration on how a service might determine the amount of fee relief to allocate to a family to their child, and what the impact will be for families in terms of improving their affordability. Final details of how the fee relief will work will be provided in the guidelines. But in this example, a family sends their 5-year-old child to a long day care preschool program with a daily sessional fee of $137. They receive the childcare subsidy, which leaves the family to pay a daily gap fee of $26.45. The child attends the service two days a week, for a total weekly gap fee of $52.90, and the service operates for 50 weeks a year. So this means that the service will apply a $40 fee relief, leaving the family to pay a weekly gap fee of $12.90. While distributing the fee relief, services will be required to demonstrate the fee reduction to families through regular statements or invoicing, demonstrate fee pass through, as part of the annual acquittal process to the department, retain evidence to support any fee increases compared to previous years, provide child family data to the New South Wales Government. So that we can meet some obligations to the Australian Government. And we will work with services over the coming months, to determine how a minimum amount of information about families can be obtained. We are developing a fact sheet about fee relief, which we will make available to you soon, to share with your families. And I'm going to hand over now to Sonja, who will talk to you about community preschool.

- Thanks, Rebecca. Hi everyone, I'm Sonja Herrmann, the Manager, Funded Programs and I'm coming to you from the beautiful land of the Dharug people. My team has been working on the redesign of Start Strong for community preschools, and Liam and I will now go through some of the program elements. First up, we'll talk about service eligibility. So similar to Start Strong in long day care, very little has changed under the eligibility criteria for the Start Strong for community preschools program. As you can see on screen, to be eligible for funding, a service must be not-for-profit community-based preschool, be an approved service under the National Law and Regulations, deliver an early childhood education program, and comply with the early childhood education grants program funding agreement. Rebecca outlined before that we are looking at shifting some of our language to align with the requirements of the Preschool Reform Agreement. Currently, the Start Strong for community preschool program guidelines state that a preschool program must be designed by teachers holding an approved early childhood teaching qualification, in accordance with the early years learning framework. From 2023, we are looking at changing the program, to focus more on being delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher. Yet in accordance with the requirements under the National Quality Framework, including using the EYLF. The child eligibility will remain the same, which means children who are at least three years or older on or before the 31st of July in that preschool year, will be eligible under the Start Strong program for community preschools. We are not currently proposing to make changes to the waiting and scaling under the Start Strong for community preschools program. And so this means funding should still be scaled based on hours of enrolment, so up to 600 hours a year, and the CIFA bands. On this note, I'd like to clarify that we are using the enrolment information you have provided in the August preschool census for funding calculations, and not the attendance data that we've also been collecting. The current maximum rate of funding is $7,076 per child, and children eligible for equity loadings continue to receive this maximum funding rate. There are also no proposed changes to children eligible for the equity loadings, and you can see them on the slide listed there on the right. Next, we're looking at the Start Strong program payment spending rules. As before, we are proposing that the services can use their Start Strong program funding for the operating expenses, including salary and wages, educational resources, and other operating costs such as rent. Up until this year, the guidelines also included a fee pass through requirement. So for 2022, this fee pass through requirement applied to non-equity 3-year-old funding. As you know, the funding proportion for non-equity 3-year-old children has increased over four years, from 25% in 2019 to 50% in 2022, and it will remain at the 50% going forward. The fee paths required will now shift to the affordable preschool component of the program, which Liam from my team, will be speaking to you about shortly. Before I hand over, I'd like to confirm that funding will still be paid quarterly, with program funding to go out as usual in December this year. The Start Strong program currently operates on a financial year basis, and we are looking at transitioning to a calendar year cycle. So from 2024, Start Strong for community preschools will likely be delivered on a calendar year basis, which aligns with other programs, such as the Disability and Inclusion program, and the proposal for Start Strong in day care. As well as the Preschool Reform Agreement, and of course the preschool year itself. Now over to Liam from my team, who will be going through some of the details on fee relief funding for community preschools.

- Thank you, Sonja, and good evening, everyone. My name is Liam, and I'm speaking to you today from the lands of the Wodi Wodi people on Dharawal Country in the Illawarra. As you've heard earlier in the session, the New South Wales Government has committed to improving affordability of early childhood education for families with children in the year or two before school. In the community and mobile preschool sector, there has been some experience with this through the time limited COVID-19 free preschool program, and the 2022 Start Strong free preschool program. The new government announcements make an ongoing commitment to supporting affordability for families of children enrolled at community and mobile services. The proposed arrangements for affordable preschool will bear some similarities to the 2022 Start Strong Free Preschool program. Community and mobile preschool services will receive up to $4,000 per child, for 3, 4, and 5-year-olds to support fee relief. Funding will be allocated to services, who will then pass on the fee relief as a reduction to family’s fees for up to 600 hours of enrolment. It is proposed that funding is proportionate to hours enrolled at a service. This concept should be familiar, as it applied in free preschool this year. And since Start Strong has been in place, it's also been applied to your Start Strong program funding as well. For mobile preschools, please be aware that whether you're funded under the Start Strong for community preschools program, or the recently implemented mobile preschool funding program, you are eligible for affordable preschool funding, and you'll be receiving that fee relief funding to pass through to your families at your service. Joe mentioned this briefly before, and I really just wanted to reinforce that point. As mentioned earlier, more guidance will be provided about accessing fee relief at more than one service, when program guidelines are released in October. The guidelines will also detail the spending rules for the program, which I'll run through with you now. Before I discuss this slide, I do just want to note again, that this is illustrative only at this point, and is subject to the finalization of the program guidelines. But as you can see from the diagram on the screen, there is a proposed flow to the way that we are looking for affordable preschool fee relief funding to be used within your services. We start with fee relief. Because at the end of the day, the name speaks for itself. The intention of the funding is to reduce daily fees for up to 600 hours at this point. The fee relief step may use all of your allocated fee relief funding, or you still may have some surplus funding remain. If you haven't used all of the fee relief funding after you have reduced the daily fees for up to 600 hours, you can then move to step two, which is costs relief. Once you've reduced that first 600 hours of enrolment, the next focus for the affordable preschool funding is to reduce additional costs to families. These may be levies, these may be administrative fees, these may be fees charged for third day of enrolment and beyond. The intention of this step would be to further reduce costs to families as much as possible. If you still have surplus fee relief funding remaining once your fees and costs are as low as possible or have been eliminated, you might then use this funding for operational costs, just as you would for your Start Strong for community preschools funding right now. Please remember that you will continue to get Start Strong program funding for your operational expenses, as Sonja just ran through. The fee relief funding that you will receive is distinct from your program funding. And we expect that the final published spending rules will be followed by services, to ensure that ultimately the fee relief funding is used for what it is intended for, which is making access to quality early childhood education more affordable for families in your communities. We want to throw to you now, to hear your thoughts on implementation support. This is open to everyone in the room. This isn't just for community and mobile preschools. We want to hear from the long day cares and the other service types, that are attending today as well. If you could please go to the link on your screen or use the QR code. There's a new code for you to use, so please make sure that you use the new code that you can see on screen. And I expect that will be posted in the chat for you to access as well. And then we would love, love to hear your answers to the question, which is, if program implementation support was provided, what topics would you like to hear about in webinars? To ensure that you feel comfortable working in the affordable preschool world, we want to make sure that things like webinars can deliver content that you want to hear and that will benefit your services, not just what we think you might like. Please note that the website and the code will be active for another 30 minutes after this session ends. This session isn't quite done yet, so you don't have to answer right away. If you need a little bit more time to think about it, that's okay. Please make sure that you have the code handy, so that if you want to answer it after the session, you can jump right into it. As we can see, we've already got quite a few suggestions on the screen there. We've got things like support for educators and staff, retention, discussions on the guidelines and spending rules, communications for families. You know, there's lots of great options there. We're able to see all of these at the end, and we'll be looking through these, to make sure that we can deliver content that is suitable and will benefit you. And keep this Menti in the back of your mind, as we now move on to the final section, where Joe will be talking to you about two important features moving forward, which are the transition to school and the ECO digital hub.

- Thanks for that Liam, much appreciated. So yes, just a couple of things for me to talk through before we get to the Q and A session. So I'd just like to speak to you about both, yes, the transition to school statement and the digital hub. So both topics have a road show session happening, where you'll be able to hear about more information, more in-depth information, but just wanted to give a quick overview on both of them. So in terms of the department's role in transition to school, some key things to call out with regards to this. We want to ensure that every child has a positive transition to school. It's a policy goal of the department. And our responsibility is to engage with all participants in the transition to school. So children, parents, early childhood services in schools. We know that the research tells us that children who make a smooth transition to school maintain higher levels of social competence and academic achievement throughout their lives. And then the initial success in transitioning into a new school environment can lead students to develop long term positive attitudes towards learning, and positively influence their well-being later in life. I don't know, Joss, if we're able just to publish in the chat just the dates, that these roadshow sessions are happening. But that might be useful for people, if this is the first time they're hearing about them. But that's the bit on the transition to school. So in terms of digitizing the transition to school, and the transition to school digital statement as part of the Start Strong program, we're looking at making completion of a transition to school digital statement mandatory from 2023. To support this, a statement will be made available digitally. There's a webinar in mid-October, as I mentioned, and our priority is engaging with schools to ensure that this work is valued and is used. And I think Joss has just posted in the chat there, the information about that session. A bit of information now on the ECO digital hub. And again, there's a separate session on this. Many of you have provided valuable input earlier this year about how you're currently using the existing ECCMS system, and how you're engaging with the department at the moment, the pain points you have, and the opportunities that you see for a new system. Thanks for providing those valuable insights. It's really helping us to guide our development, so that we can better meet your needs, and create a system which can alleviate these pain points. So our approach will be well considered, it will be phased over time, it won't happen overnight. It will be shortlisted in possible technologies early next year, followed by procurement of a preferred system. You can be reassured that we'll be providing extensive training and support to you, for using the new system when the time comes. Essentially, the focus of the digital hub is to make engaging with the department much easier for you, and to streamline the work of our internal team, so that we can deliver program funding and support to you all more effectively. So it aims to cut down the admin burden for you and your staff, to streamline data collection into one location to make applying for funding, granting that funding a lot easier, and without the need for, for multiple systems and manual processes, which I'm sure many of you, as we are, will be all too familiar with. It'll also enable better connections between you and the department, because we'll have the facility to manage communications, and provide program level support you through one system. The image on this slide summarizes the key functions of the new hub. Initially these will include funding processes, child attendance data, the ability to update some of your details to keep things current, support communications between you and the department, and it'll also help our internal teams with relationship management for individual services. So our next planned engagement will be in the form of a survey in October to all community preschools and mobile services. And the purpose of this survey is to identify how community preschools and mobile services are currently recording and storing attendance data. For example, whether you are using a software system for this, or whether you input information onto Excel spreadsheets, or perhaps you keep a paper-based system going. And this will help us to understand the diverse requirements for the collection and the transfer of attendance data, and how we need to engage with you on the options for storing and transferring this information. So your service can also be involved in early phase activities in 2023. Meaning preschools and mobile services can nominate interests when you complete the survey. And for long day providers who are also interested in being part of those early phase activities, you can get in touch with us by emailing the digital hub email, which I don't know if it's on this slide, but again, I think we can post that in the chat and make that available for people. After the survey, we'll be speaking with all of you about data collection practices and developing our approach for data collection. We'll also be looking at potential technologies for the new hub system, which will satisfy our business requirements. So as always, our intention is to keep you well-informed, and to engage with you at key points throughout the process, so we can build a system which works for all stakeholders. Once again, please be assured that we'll provide extensive training and support to you for using the new system when the time comes down the track. And tune in as I said to that, the upcoming session on the digital hub. There'll be a lot more detailed information about where the work's up to and where it's going. So that is it for me. I think we've got a Q and A session now. And I think Joss are you going to... There's lots of questions I can see in the chat. Are you going to kind of coordinate things, in terms of which questions we should be responding to?

- Sure, yes, so I've been... There's lots of questions coming in through the Q and A function, so I might just start firing them out, if that's alright. So I'm not sure who it needs to go to, and there's a lot here, so I'm just trying to work through them as I'm talking. We had one from Juliet, who asked quite early on, and it must... "Does the Preschool Reform Agreement continue to run if the government changes?"

- Well, we decided... The New South Wales Government signed the four-year agreement in December. We're certainly working on the basis, that that four-year agreement will be honoured. Some of our teams are working on what the implementation of the agreement looks like, and there may be some changes to that over the four years. But certainly, we're working on the basis that the funding's locked in, the agreement's been signed for the next four years, regardless of whether there's a change in government.

- Thanks Joe. I've got another one here from an anonymous attendee. "Does this mean that funding based on attendance, instead of enrolment, will be more than likely not to go ahead as first proposed?" Does this... Hold on, let me just re-read this one. "Does this mean that funding based on attendance instead of enrolment, will more than likely not go ahead as first proposed?" So maybe Joe, do you want to clarify around the intended...

- Yes, so I can confirm that funding will continue to be based on enrolment certainly for 2023. We can confirm that that's the case, yes.

- Perfect, and then can we confirm that there will be two? So just confirming there will be two types of funding for preschool in 2023, Start Strong community preschools and affordable preschool?

- So probably the best way for us to conceptualize this, so at the moment obviously we have two separate programs. We have the community preschool program, and we have the free preschool program. What we've essentially done in terms of the program architecture is, is take the community preschool program, the free preschool program, and the long day care program, and we are thinking of it now as one overarching Start Strong program with two separate streams. So there'll be a community preschool stream, there'll be a long day care stream. Both of those have the fee relief component built in. So, that's probably the easiest way to conceptualize how the program will be structured going forward. Providers will receive two payments. There'll be a program payment and a fee relief payment, but it will be as part of one program. I don't know Sonja or Beck, if you wanted to kind of add anything to that.

- I think you explained it perfectly. It is true two payments, yes, two components of... So it means you get the Start Strong program payment that I was talking about, and you will get the fee relief payment that Liam talked about, you know, for community preschools, absolutely. And it's going to be very similar for long day cares.

- Thank you, the questions are coming in hot, and it's bouncing around on my screen, so it's quite distracting. Okay, will funding include Department of Education preschools? Anyone?

- Yes, so we are working closely with our colleagues internally, that manage funding to DOE preschools. There is funding through both the PRA and the Affordable Preschool initiative, that will be allocated to DOE preschools. We're just working with them. There's a slightly different approach, in terms of how that funding gets allocated, 'cause it's obviously linked to the school system and the school budgeting approach. So, the answer to that is, yes, funding will be available for DOE preschools, we're just working out the specifics with our colleagues internally.

- Thanks Joe, I've got a question. This one's probably for you, Beck. Will the fee relief need to be applied prior to CCS? So maybe, just if you want to explain around the relationship with your fee relief and the childcare subsidy.

- We're just finalizing what that's going to look like, but it will have no impact on the child care subsidy. And we are looking at it being applied after the childcare subsidy has been applied.

- Thank you. Thanks everyone for all your questions. I'm trying to keep up with them, they're firing through. There was... Is there a targeted amount for Aboriginal families and children specifically?

- So the way in which Start Strong funding works, is there's what we refer to as equity loadings for First Nations children. Probably worth waiting for the guidelines to be released, in terms of the specifics around what that looks like. But it's essentially the same funding model, that we've already got in place, whereby First Nations kids attract additional funding. I don't know if Sonja or Beck, if there's anything further to add on that. But the same principle to the, the current program will apply to the new program.

- Sonja, did you have anything to add to that?

- No, I mean I've had it on my slide, when I talked about the Start Strong program payment. So yes, we've got these equity loadings, and those cohorts are proposed to be the same. So Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are on that, so that they attract basically the highest, maximum rate under Start Strong.

- I've got a question, and now this question... I've got a couple of questions here, that were provided ahead of time as part of the registration process, just around, will we continue to do the census in August for the following funding year?

- That is the intention, I believe for next year. And I think in terms of the timing, I think August is agreed as the most suitable date for the census. Certainly, there will be a census, and I'm pretty certain it will be in August. That will be confirmed in the... I'm seeing some nods from colleagues here, so yes, I can confirm that the census will take place in August.

- Thanks Joe. Another question that was sent through, was around the budget template. So if there'll be a budget template that services can use, I think it's been provided for community preschools in the past.

- I can jump in, if you want. So I'm assuming this refers to the funding planning tool, or also referred as the funding calculator. And so yes, we are working with our internal teams on the release of a new version, so that it would include the entirety of starts from the program payments as well as the affordability funding. And so we're just working through that, and we'll try and make that available as soon as possible.

- Perfect, and then I've got plenty more. One about how we can use Start Strong for workforce attraction and retention. If anyone wants to talk, maybe Joe do you want to talk to that one?

- So one of the things we're proposing, and this is as I said earlier, subject to kind of internal approvals, but we want to give greater flexibility certainly on the long day care side. So the current program, Start Strong long day care funding, can't be used for salary and wages. We're mindful of the challenges that the sector face currently in relation to workforce, and we are keen for greater flexibility to be built into the program. So as I said, subject to that final approval, we are anticipating that the spending will give much greater flexibility to services, to use their funding for salary, wages, workforce retention, other incentives as well.

- Thanks Joe. I've got a question around safety net funded services. "Will the safety net funding section of Start Strong funding still exist in 2023 and beyond?"

- Sonja?

- Yes, I was just about to say, yes, it is proposed to retain that, absolutely, so that we have the service safety net continued, and that's just part of the Start Strong, like the base or the program funding not the affordable preschool, that would come on top the affordability.

- Thank you. I have a question around children and it's quite specific. Oh actually no, I've got... Okay, so around concerns from services around children and families double dipping with the fee-free preschool. So whether they're going to two fee-free preschools. Or a question around long day care and community preschool for into next year. Does someone want to talk on that?

- Yes, happy to. So some of the detail of this will be in the program guidelines. But certainly, as a kind of a program setting, or kind of policy position, we are wanting families to only be, only be able to access the fee relief once. So if they've got a child, who's in a community preschool and a long day care, they would have to nominate where they would access the fee relief. So we're just kind of working through exactly how that will work. But certainly as a starting sort of first principle, we want families to access that fee relief just the once. And more detail on that will be, will be in the guidelines when they get released.

- Thanks Joe, it looks like there's a few with that theme. So, we will take...

- There was one... There was one early on, Joss, I think we've skipped over, but I think it's important in the context of kind of cost of living, inflationary pressures, et cetera. But there was, there was a question about whether or not the fee relief was going to be kind of increased each year to keep up to, that up with the cost-of-living pressures. So just to confirm that in future years that fee relief, we will apply indexation to that, so it will increase year on year, and that's built into the business case for the affordable preschool.

- Thanks Joe. There looks to be a few themes around SIEFA bands as well. So, a question from anonymous, "Will SEIFA bands be reviewed?"

- So the short answer to that is, yes, they will be, but not for the 2023 programs. So, and Sonja might want to provide a bit more detail on this. But this is something we are very keen to look at this. Probably the main thing with the 2023 program has been the timing, so keen to get the 2023 program operational, and funding allocations distributed. But it is something we've got on our agenda to look at next year, yes.

- Thanks Joe. One of, a question's come through in a follow up around families double dipping, and it's around, is it on the responsibilities of the families, or the service, or the department around understand what families might be, where they might be enrolling their children and getting the fee relief.

- Yes, it's difficult to get into too much detail on this one ahead of it being formally approved. But as I said earlier, our position is that families should only be accessing fee relief once, and we'll introduce a mechanism for kind of ensuring that that, that that happens. There'll be, yes, quite a bit of detail in the guidelines, as to how that's going to work in kind of practical terms.

- Thanks Joe, we've had a couple of questions as well around when the guidelines will be released. I don't know if people jumped in late, but Joe, do you want to just do a recap on when the guidelines will be going out?

- Yes, sure. So we've committed to getting the guidelines out in October. Funding notification letters will be issued before the end of term four this year. And I think I mentioned as well earlier, there will be implementation support for services, and that relates back to the, the Menti that Liam led earlier. We want to design that implementation support around the needs of services to ensure, that the content you'll get from that is really helpful in terms of how you, as a service, implement the program.

- Thank you. Obviously, you know, with the finalized, the guidelines being finalized, I've just had a question from Kerry. "Will the program guidelines indicate hours of attendance per day?"

- I'm not entirely sure what's meant by that question. So the guidelines will specify kind of funding rates based on hours of enrolment, as they currently do. So that information's currently provided, and will also be included in the new guidelines, but I'm not sure if that's what the question's getting at. But certainly funding is, continues to be linked to kind of hours of enrolment, both on the community preschool and the long day care side.

- Thanks Joe, I've had a question from Sebastian. "Will there be continued funding for existing programs, that support access to early childhood education for underrepresented cohorts, such as families from recent migrant and refugee backgrounds?"

- I'm not entirely sure what funding is being kind of referenced there. We do have other programs that we, that we administer through the department. But without knowing specifically what program is being referred to, it's quite difficult to, to give a yes or a no to that one. Sonja, I don't know, just taking...

- I just want to that under Start Strong for community preschools there's no visa or citizen requirements. So you know, so there's no restrictions. So if there's refugee children you want to enrol, you can, the funding is there, is available for those children as well. There's no restriction on that.

- Thanks Sonja. And I've got a few transition to school questions here. I see we've got another of our Directors on Jess who, or Joe, if you'd like to speak on transition to school.

- What's the actual question? Sorry.

- Okay, I've got the relationship with transition to school statements with non-government schools, so I don't know if there's any one in particular. Jess, if you want to kind of do a bit of a summary on the digital statements? I've thrown you in it, Jess, sorry.

- [Jess] Yes.

- I wonder if that... I was going to say, I wonder if that question should be, should be taken on notice, and we can incorporate it into the, into the upcoming session on transition to school. It sounds like quite a specific one, and would be good for us to get our colleagues who are leading that session to kind of build that into their, their presentation I think.

- Perfect, it sounds good.

- Sorry, sorry if that sounds sort of not really answering the question. But there is a dedicated session on transition to school, and I think that might be the best place to have that.

- Perfect.

- Answered, yes.

- Thanks Joe, I've got a question. Any update on Start Strong Pathways?

- Beyond the update that was given earlier, we've got ministerial approval for what was a two-year extension, so we're... That two-year extension kicked off 1 July this year. So there's a one-year contract extension, and there's a one-year sort of transition year. We're in the process of commissioning kind of a piece of work on program redesign. So as soon as that's commissioned, we'll be communicating with pathways providers. But in terms of kind of funding certainty, I think that was communicated earlier this year around that two-year extension.

- Thanks.

- But if there's specific... If that question has come from a pathways provider, and they're wanting to kind of engage with the team, we can connect them up with the relevant, the grant funding team, that lead that program, if there's further information that's needed.

- Thank you, we've just got time for a couple more. I've got a question and it's a bit more of a statement, and I think Joe, it's probably an opportunity to talk to the implementation support that will be available. But the statement is, we're feeling really burdened, and you know, we're waiting for guidelines, and we've got transition to school, and we've going to deliver the programs, this person's feeling exhausted. Do you want to talk to the support that we'll be rolling out as part of the release of the guidelines?

- Yes, sure, and you know, we are kind of still shaping up what that exactly will focus on. We want that to be informed by the needs of providers. We also want it to be delivered in a way that's as easy as possible for the services to engage with, really recognizing, you know, just how busy services are, the workforce challenges that services are facing. We want to, yes, make those kinds of webinars available, to be kind of accessed at a time that's kind of suitable for the staff. But I think, let's wait. In terms of the kind of the content of the implementation support, I think Liam mentioned, that the Menti is open for another half an hour or so. But maybe as a kind of feedback loop for this session we can, we can flag what came through strongest. And we'll certainly be making sure that those, those themes that came through the Menti will be reflected in the, the kind of the priorities of the organization that we engage to deliver the implementation support.

- Thanks Joe. And we'll put in the chat the Menti with the code for the implementation support as well, if people weren't able to jump on at the time. But yes, it will be open following this session, so I do encourage people to jump on and provide feedback. I also do want to note, we do have lots of questions still flowing in, and we will take all of the questions on notice and commit to sharing as much information with you as we move forward. This information, these questions that you're asking are really invaluable for us, particularly looking at future comms, to make sure that the sector is provided with the information to support you, and with those conversations with families as well. I've probably got two more questions left, 'cause we have two minutes to go, and it's 5:28, the day before a public holiday tomorrow. So, do we... I'm just having a look, we've got a few. They just flying, sorry, it's really distracting. Again, the double dipping has come up. So we've got a couple that have been upvoted at the top around releasing the guidelines on double dipping. And Meg has indicated that it's going to be a challenge to implement for 2023, when enrolments are being done now without a parent nominating where their funding will be allocated. So I think that's a bit of a statement. And then how do you do, is there any advice around managing this timing issue?

- Like...

- One thing... One thing, sorry Joe. I was just going to say one thing that we will have, which will support services with the release of the guidelines is some resources for services to share with their families, which we're hoping will be really helpful for you, with having those conversations as well around the advice guidelines, and to help with families understanding the fee relief and what it means to them.

- Absolutely, there'll be, there'll be fact sheets and communications that we'll make available, that will help kind of communicate the approach to families. And like I said, the guidelines when released, will have really clear information about how we are going to manage the children enrolled at multiple services issued, particularly as it relates to fee relief. And yes, keen to engage with the sector on that as well once it's released. I would imagine that our implementation support may have that as a bit of a focus, if there's additional information that's going to be needed. But certainly yes, guidelines will be, will be issued next month and will contain really clear information about how that will be managed.

- Thanks Joe, thanks everybody. It's now 5:30. I really want to say a big thank you for your time today. Acknowledge that everyone is super busy, particularly those who are busy on the floor with our littlest learners. So thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate your time, and have a fabulous day off tomorrow, however you intend to spend it, thanks so much.

- Thanks everyone, cheers.